Sure Signal (Femto-Cell)

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#429691 21-Jan-2011 22:28

sbiddle:
tombrownzz: How would I stop other people using my sure signal femoto-cell without my permission? If a friend I have just met comes into my house with his 3g cellphone, will he be able to use my femoto-cell without entering a password? And does the signal reach outdoors because if it does could my neighbours use it without my permission?

There is nothing to stop this.

Most femtocell deployments (such as Vodafone UK) have been locked down deployments where you have to register the IMEI of phones before they can connect to the femto. This has attracted a lot of criticism and seen as one of the biggest failings from the initiail rollout so Vodafone NZ have obviously decided to skip this and go straight to an open model.

I think it's a good thing to open up the Femto, having to register IMEI's sound just silly to me. If your data is zero rated (which it will be) and if they have some clever QOS so that someone torrenting can't consume all the bandwidth affecting the voice quality of the call then why should you care if someone comes in via the local Femto?

richms

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#429705 21-Jan-2011 23:00

If I have paid for it, why should just anyone be able to use it? There will be some slowdown of your normal internet if there is someone using the 3g, and if you were in an apartment or something the 20m range could reasonably mean that your neighbour was within range.

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billgates

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#429720 21-Jan-2011 23:56

if data is zero rated, then what's stopping a user from tethering their phone to their pc and downloading tera bytes of data using femto-cell?

Do whatever you want to do man.

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#429722 22-Jan-2011 00:02

billgates: if data is zero rated, then what's stopping a user from tethering their phone to their pc and downloading tera bytes of data using femto-cell?

Well they would be charged for downloading terabytes of data on their mobile dataplan.

billgates

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#429724 22-Jan-2011 00:09

BarTender:
billgates: if data is zero rated, then what's stopping a user from tethering their phone to their pc and downloading tera bytes of data using femto-cell?

Well they would be charged for downloading terabytes of data on their mobile dataplan.

ah I see, so data would come out of your standard data plan on your sim.

Do whatever you want to do man.

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#429726 22-Jan-2011 00:12

billgates:
BarTender:
billgates: if data is zero rated, then what's stopping a user from tethering their phone to their pc and downloading tera bytes of data using femto-cell?

Well they would be charged for downloading terabytes of data on their mobile dataplan.

ah I see, so data would come out of your standard data plan on your sim.

From what I have read it opens up a VPN tunnel into Vodafone from the femto and pumps everything directly in there. So all billing and call management, sms, and data is done centrally via the core.

billgates

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#429728 22-Jan-2011 00:15

BarTender:
billgates:
BarTender:
billgates: if data is zero rated, then what's stopping a user from tethering their phone to their pc and downloading tera bytes of data using femto-cell?

Well they would be charged for downloading terabytes of data on their mobile dataplan.

ah I see, so data would come out of your standard data plan on your sim.

From what I have read it opens up a VPN tunnel into Vodafone from the femto and pumps everything directly in there. So all billing and call management, sms, and data is done centrally via the core.

what about roaming? one could setup VPN on their modem/router while overseas providing they have vodafone broadband at their premise in NZ and get free romaing in a sense? or is that locked down as well somehow?

Do whatever you want to do man.

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#429731 22-Jan-2011 00:33

billgates:
BarTender:
billgates:
BarTender:
billgates: if data is zero rated, then what's stopping a user from tethering their phone to their pc and downloading tera bytes of data using femto-cell?

Well they would be charged for downloading terabytes of data on their mobile dataplan.

ah I see, so data would come out of your standard data plan on your sim.

From what I have read it opens up a VPN tunnel into Vodafone from the femto and pumps everything directly in there. So all billing and call management, sms, and data is done centrally via the core.

what about roaming? one could setup VPN on their modem/router while overseas providing they have vodafone broadband at their premise in NZ and get free romaing in a sense? or is that locked down as well somehow?

It seems the ones in the US have GPS's in them too. But it may work YMMV.

oxnsox

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#429749 22-Jan-2011 07:37

There a Blog on here http://www.geekzone.co.nz/sbiddle/7529 that suggests that might be possible. But the VodaGeeks will be aware of that too so don't be surprised if it's not that simple, or not that possible.

Remember these things have a very short range and you can reduce that by simply putting them in a bad place in your house (well away from the neighbours).
But if you're really worried about the neighbours they probably need the service too... so just convince them to buy one first and you can 'try it out'.

Geese

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#429755 22-Jan-2011 08:33

So with a mobile's receive broadcast message setting on, I wonder what name would show up with one of these, and whether that name could be (easily) customised with provided software?

tombrownzz

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#429883 22-Jan-2011 15:29

sbiddle:
tombrownzz: How would I stop other people using my sure signal femoto-cell without my permission? If a friend I have just met comes into my house with his 3g cellphone, will he be able to use my femoto-cell without entering a password? And does the signal reach outdoors because if it does could my neighbours use it without my permission?

There is nothing to stop this.

Most femtocell deployments (such as Vodafone UK) have been locked down deployments where you have to register the IMEI of phones before they can connect to the femto. This has attracted a lot of criticism and seen as one of the biggest failings from the initiail rollout so Vodafone NZ have obviously decided to skip this and go straight to an open model.

So is it possible to enable the IMEI access list feature? Otherwise unauthorised people can look at illegal websites using someone elses femto-cell, like unprotected wifi. And bandwidth will be reduced if people are using it. Can we just login into our femto-cell and tick a box called "enable IMEI access list" and manually add the IMEI numbers? This would be so easy to setup.

coffeebaron

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#429904 22-Jan-2011 16:12

IlDuce: So with a mobile's receive broadcast message setting on, I wonder what name would show up with one of these, and whether that name could be (easily) customised with provided software?

This is only applicable on GSM; these are 3G devices, so N/A

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#429906 22-Jan-2011 16:17

coffeebaron:
IlDuce: So with a mobile's receive broadcast message setting on, I wonder what name would show up with one of these, and whether that name could be (easily) customised with provided software?

This is only applicable on GSM; these are 3G devices, so N/A

During testing the phone displayed ' Sure Signal ' on 3G and should on the production units

coffeebaron

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#429907 22-Jan-2011 16:18

tombrownzz: So is it possible to enable the IMEI access list feature? Otherwise unauthorised people can look at illegal websites using someone elses femto-cell, like unprotected wifi. And bandwidth will be reduced if people are using it. Can we just login into our femto-cell and tick a box called "enable IMEI access list" and manually add the IMEI numbers? This would be so easy to setup.

The connection is VPN tunneled back to Vodafone, so access to such would track back to the mobile phone, not your broadband connection.

Rural IT and Broadband support.

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Geese

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#430123 23-Jan-2011 09:33

2 Questions:

-Could this be run off mobile broadband, which is plugged into a Vodafone Broadband Complete unit (HG556a)?

-If this was set up in a house which gets full bars coverage, would the mobile phone connect to it, or would the cell tower over power it and the phone would just stay connected to the tower?

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