Interesting links, week 36, 2023

Interesting telco/tech news for this week:

• Vodafone using Kuipers as backhaul link: a very good idea - using LEO satellites as backhaul for terrestrial mobile networks. In general, Vodafone has been quite technical compared to other telco (i.e. OpenRAN, AST sat-to-ue coverage…) but this might be an interesting bet to build isolated sites with weird geographical topology that makes radio links expensive to build.
• Reducing RAN costs: “Macro site cooling is becoming an issue moving ahead. As it turns out, energy is the real issue. " of course, switch to DU/CU model with an Intel Xeon + RAN PCIe FPGA accelerator + Software makes maybe sense on supply chain costs, but not energy-on-site costs sense.
• Why not matrix: I never check on the matrix ecosystem, but this blog is a good overview of the “over-engineered” technical approach to the whole thing. Jabber, despite the XML, might not that bad.

Found a couple of nice links this week on the Internet:

• Openverso Images: found out the OpenVerso folks in Spain are maintaining a nice list of nearly ready to use Docker images with all popular opensource Telco payloads (OpenAir, srsRAN, Open5GS…).
• RogueMaster firmware: alternative firmware for the Flipperzero hardware with support for … POCSAG.

Listened a couple of nice podcasts this week:

• Bruce Davie (System Approach) in The Route of Networking: a very nice story on a career course on the right point of time of Internet history.
• Cisco Tech Stories - Healthcare drama during Covid: a bit long, but a nice summary on challenges for big org to debug customers in specific business environment.