Hello fellow retronetworkers,
I am now looking into possibly using icE1usb to talk to my Nokia TRAU.
My original was to use a Digium PCI card, but I ran into issues:
a) The only machine I have with a PCI slot is a production machine;
b) My naive hope that DAHDI would "just work" did not pan out;
c) Deeper troubleshooting would require subjecting this production
machine to more downtime than allowable.
Hence I am looking at the alternative of using icE1usb instead. There
is one sticking point though: unlike a BTS, playing with a TRAU requires
a minimum of two E1 circuits, one for A i/f and one for Ater. And I
know that few host systems can drive icE1usb with both interfaces in
terms of USB limitations.
However, this page says that Raspberry Pi 5 should do the trick:
https://osmocom.org/projects/e1-t1-adapter/wiki/Isochronous_USB_Issues
I am thinking about getting an RPi5 specifically for the purpose of
driving icE1usb with both E1 interfaces active. The requirement of
having no other USB devices will be easy to satisfy: the whole RPi5
will be just for this purpose and no other. But I would like to
confirm:
a) Does anyone here have actual experience with RPi5 driving both E1
interfaces on an icE1usb?
b) RPi5 has two kinds of USB host ports: some USB2 and some USB3.
Which would be better to use for icE1usb?
TIA for any leads,
M~
Hello fellow retronetworkers,
For those of you who enjoyed my TRAU presentation last week, I got a
very positive update. :) Today I got this TRAU powered up (after
getting the right crimp connector parts from Digi-Key and assembling
the necessary wiring harness for -48 VDC power to the box), and while
I still don't have the additional hw that brings out E1 circuits, the
management interface I got on the RS-232 port shows that this unit has
everything we'll need to have lots of fun once those E1 connections
are made:
* No password lock: the mgmt interface password is the factory default
that's documented in the manual.
* There are 3 DSP fw images installed on the TRCO (the maximum it can
hold per the docs), covering circuit types A, B and F. Circuit type
F (the one it came configured with) is AMR, which is not of much
interest to me (and apparently Nokia never implemented TFO for AMR
in any of their TRAUs), but cfg A is 16 kbit/s FR/EFR/CSD and cfg B
is 8 kbit/s HR - these are the ones I look forward to playing with.
* TFO feature is present, i.e., NOT excluded or blocked by "premium
feature" schemes - yay! Obviously I won't be able to confirm it
actually working until I get A & Ater E1 interfaces brought out and
connected to my test rig, but the option to enable/disable TFO is
present and accessible in the mgmt interface, and when I set it to
enabled, it shows up as such in config readback.
The next step is for me to buy an ET2E module and the ET1TC chassis
that holds it from shields-e (the same people from whom I bought the
parts I already got), and then make my own cable with DIN 41612
connectors to connect the two backplanes - that's how we'll get the
two E1 interfaces (A and Ater) out of this baby.
Until then, if you are curious to see what the management i/f for the
TRAU looks like, here is a log of my RS-232 session talking to the
box, from power-up:
https://www.freecalypso.org/members/falcon/trau/tcsm2-boot.log
and here is the manual that describes this interface:
https://www.freecalypso.org/pub/GSM/Nokia_TCSM/tcsm2-command.pdf
Happy hacking,
Mother Mychaela
Hello retronetworking community,
As Harald already announced, tomorrow (or later today in Eurasian time
zones) I will be giving my first installment in what will be a series
of presentation on my adventures with Nokia TRAU hardware, specifically
TCSM2. In order to make better use of time during the actual
RetroNetCall, I am posting my slides ahead of time:
https://www.freecalypso.org/members/falcon/presentations/trau-pres1.txthttps://www.freecalypso.org/members/falcon/presentations/trau-pres1.pshttps://www.freecalypso.org/members/falcon/presentations/trau-pres1.pdf
(Plain text -> Postscript -> PDF is my generation chain; I write in
plain text, but PDF is needed for upload into BigBlueButton.)
Anyone who is interested in this TRAU topic, I recommend that you read
these slides ahead of time - this way I can spend less time reading
the slides (or pausing for people to read them in real time), and we
can have more time for the fun parts of looking at the hardware (I will
be pointing my webcam at the hw) and discussing the still-outstanding
challenges.
See y'all tomorrow, after my sleep cycle. :)
M~
Dear Osmocom community,
we're happy to announce the next incarnation of RetroNetCall[1],
the retronetworking oriented spin-off of OsmoDevCall[2].
when:
Jun 5, 2024 at 20:00 CEST
where:
https://osmocom.org/RetroNetCall
This time, @falconia will be presenting on
Nokia TCSM2, a bank of TRAUs with E1 interfaces: Part 1, initial examination of the hardware
This meeting will have the following schedule:
20:00 meet + greet
20:10 presentation as outlined above
21:00 unstructured supplementary social event [3]
Attendance is free of charge and open to anyone with an interest
in Osmocom or open source cellular technologies.
More information about RetroNetCall, including the schedule
for further upcoming events can be found at
https://osmocom.org/projects/retronetworking/wiki/RetroNetCall
Looking forward to meeting you soon!
Best regards,
Harald
[1] https://osmocom.org/projects/retronetworking/wiki/RetroNetCall
[2] https://osmocom.org/projects/osmo-dev-con/wiki/OsmoDevCall
[3] this is how we started to call the "unstructured" part of osmocom
developer conferences in the past, basically where anyone can talk about
anything, no formal schedule or structure.
--
- Harald Welte <laforge(a)osmocom.org> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/
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