Taking another look at Software Radio, this time with the Ettus Research E100, we create a data tunnel and send a network over it. The E100 includes an entire Linux machine within the device so the need for an external computer is gone. We can simply use the internal Linux machine to route packets and control the radio. Two E100s are shown connecting to each other and granting Internet access to a small WiFi Access Point. We use GNURadio’s tunnel.py (from the examples directory) which creates a tunnel device called gr0. Adding an IP and configuring a network to route through it is all that is needed to get this going.

E100 hardware is available from http://ettus.com/ for roughly $1,600.00 each. Parts list: E100, RFX900, VERT900.

OpenBTS is an open source software project that implements a GSM BTS capable of supplying cellular voice and SMS service via a software programmable radio. The main hardware for the project is the USRP, or Universal Software Radio Peripheral. Ettus Research out of Mountian View, California produce the N210 USRP device used in this video. A complete USRP setup like this (N210, WBX transceiver board and Vert900 antennas) list around $2,700.

The ADH8066 is a complete embeded quad-band GSM radio capable of voice, data and SMS service. With just a serial connection it can add GSM communication to an embeded project. The radio sells for $50 at SparkFun.com as does the development board whith voltage regualtors, USB and breakout pins.

Xen virtualization with LVM volumes on top of a software RAID 1 on a machine with 2 hard drives.