Something I’ve been realizing is that a lot of engineers do not understand the requirements behind building a Private Cellular LTE or 5G network. At WLPC Phoenix a month ago, I taught a class about Private Cellular for a group of twenty Wi-Fi engineers. During the discussion, we talked about a bunch of Private Cellular Cores that are available on the market. I showed off one core and have featured various cores on this blog. That lead to an idea, to showcase all of the Cores that I have access to.
I’m going to start a series of blog posts about Cellular cores to help educate the Wi-Fi industry. Let’s start with the cheapest cloud core by far, that is Baicells HaloB. There are cheap cores that you can install on your own hardware, but when it comes to a cloud based core, Baicells in your cheapest option, but you are limited to their hardware.
Baicells
First, let’s talk about something that has been in the political news as of lately about Baicells. There was recently, an article written by a journalist, that reached out to me for my insights. I thought her messages were a scam so I didn’t follow through, but some of my friends talked to her. Her focus was on the fact that, the Chinese based, Baicells company was founded by former Huawei veterans and is in the sights of the FBI. They have offices in Wisconsin for their US based branch, but all is not well in Baicells land because of their ties with China.
The ties to China have a lot of people spooked about purchasing from the company. This is sad because Baicells produced and whiteboxed the vast majority of first gen radios for the CBRS Private LTE industry within the United States. Everyone from Celona to GXC to the cryptoboys were whiteboxing Baicells radios. While others have come and gone such as Ruckus, Baicells continues to make radios for CBRS and other bands.
Looking beyond the political warnings, Baicells has not been prohibited from selling inside the United States yet. I’ve had various discussions with their people, and they are working to get off the Chinese watch list.
**UPDATE** I was reminded by some friends about something I should expand upon here. Baicells radios using the Baicells Firmware and Software ARE talking to Chinese servers. I’ve had this on my personal Baicells radios. Baicells is facing a lot of backlash about this right now. Many government and businesses were lead to believe that this wasn’t happening. There are some vendors that are taking Baicells Hardware and flashing their own Firmware on the hardware that removes this issue.
Since that article was released, Baicells has been on damage control. On the bottom of their CloudCore page, they include this banner mentioning that all CloudCore and HaloB solutions are hosted in Microsoft Azure and based on North America located cloud servers.
Despite the political upheaval for the company, let’s dig into the Baicells HaloB Core as a possible solution for Home Lab engineers looking to dig into the technology.
Home Labs
In the Wi-Fi industry, it is recommended for anyone looking to play with Wi-Fi to have a home lab. Anyone can buy a Wi-Fi radio off of amazon and begin to understand the technology. Vendors will send demo units trying to influence people to buy their gear. That’s why we have so many Wi-Fi vendors in the consumer and business industries.
Personally my Wi-Fi journey began in 2007, when I took cheap Linksys routers, installed custom firmware from DD-WRT on them, installed them in a family motel, and had services that rivaled business grade access points, such as a crappy captive portal.
That hasn’t been possible on the Private Cellular side, which is partially why the industry has struggled. I was able to build a solid understanding and create this blog because I had access to Private Cellular radios and core.
The industry has pushed for a long time to get the technology into engineer’s hands through demos and proof concepts that have plagued the industry. I have several friends on the sales side of private cellular companies that have complained to me over the years that the industry is constantly on the brink but mired in proof of concepts. These POCs allow engineer to play with the technology but isn’t the same as building a home lab.
That’s where Bailcells HaloB come into the picture. If you do not have the budget to afford a LTE Core, then Baicells HaloB is a good home lab solution. It’s not free, but can be had for cheaper than most solutions out there.
Additionally, thanks to the crypto boys, you can purchase very cheap Baicells radios off of Ebay. The Baicells LTE radios on Ebay are old end-of-life units, but they still work with CloudCore and OMC. I’ve personally build my own home lab with these Baicells Nova 227 radios off of Ebay.
Within these Nova 227 Baicells radio you can configure some settings and run them without CloudCore, but you still need an EPC Core. If you’re running a Home Lab, you can also use PLMN 999001 instead of the CBRS PLMN of 315010. Using 315010 requires purchasing a block from the OnGo Alliance. 999001 was set aside for Private Network internationally and is kind of like private IP address such as 10.0.0.1/24.
Remember these Nova 227 radios are directional instead of omni, so point them in the direction you want it to cover, as shown in Hamina below. Also, the power limits are limited compared to other outdoor CBRS radios.
OMC
Baicells Operations Management Console (OMC) is a central location for managing all Baicells based devices. It consists of three main pieces. BOSS is for managing subscribers for a WISP. CloudCore is used for managing the radios centrally. HaloB is the place for managing the Baicells Core.
BOSS
CloudCore and HaloB are often used by Wireless ISPs. The CBRS spectrum, when it was originally released by the FCC, had a stipulation included to grandfather WISPs into the incumbent protections for a while until their spectrum licenses expired. Then WISPs were moved into the PAL or GAA licensing like everyone else.
BOSS is used for managing clients usage and subscriptions for these WISPs. It gives you an overview of all the total subscriptions a WISP has. BOSS is about managing costs when you are using Baicells radios.
I am member of a Facebook group for people who are running these WISPs using Baicells OMC, CloudCore, and HaloB. This is a popular solution for WISPs.
Within BOSS you get a quick overview of all your subscribers and the revenue.
You can configure all of the Subscribers and different settings about the subscriptions such as limiting available bandwidth based upon a subscription.
You can setup different service plans to control groups of subscribers.
Then you can assign SIM cards to subscribers.
CloudCore OMC
HaloB and CloudCore together provide a basic radio manager and LTE/5G core. For just $1 per radio per month, you can manage all of your Baicells radios in a central location with CloudCore.
CloudCore gives a good basic list for all the connected radios.
You can centrally configure the Radios to use SAS and enter your CPI Credentials as required for all CBRS networks. If you are just setting up a Home Lab for testing briefly, you can set the radios to not use SAS. If you are installing the radio for longer than a brief test, you must pay for a SAS subscription and use CPI credentials to certify the radio. That is one of the requirements of CBRS that you cannot get around without running risks with the FCC.
HaloB
On Baicells’ website they call HaloB a “Lite EPC”. The EPC is the Core or controller where the network is configured and managed. You can get HaloB for an license upgrade of roughly $250.
It works by embedding a “Lite EPC” (Evolved Packet Core) directly into Baicells’ eNodeB (eNB) base stations.
The eNodeB is the radios or similar to APs in the Wi-Fi world. HaloB is similar to the Wi-Fi controller that resides in the cloud like many Wi-Fi vendors solutions.
The biggest benefits of HaloB is the cost. You get a cloud hosted core for a very cheap cost. Compared to LTE Cores from other vendors costing in the ten’s of thousands of dollars, Baicells HaloB give you a cloud hosted core at a much reduced cost.
Within CloudCore, there is a menu on the left called Core Network. When you click on that, you can set the radios within your CloudCore to use HaloB through a slider in the middle of the screen. The HaloB Enable slider turns on the usages of HaloB as your LTE Core.
Within HaloB, you have a basic Core. Without licensing, you can view the IMSI Allocated data, APN List, and MSISDN.
Lastly, you can enter the purchased Licensing for your HaloB network under the inventory tab on the left and selecting License at the top.
I’m just using the Basic License. I do not license HaloB for my own usage, so I do not have the ability to show off any more configuration beyond this. As I mentioned at the beginning, HaloB is meant to be a Lite LTE Core. It is pretty basic in what you can do.
SIM Cards
There are just two more pieces required to build a Private Cellular Home Lab. End User devices and SIM Cards. End User devices are already in the hands of most engineers building home labs. Most modern cell phones support the CBRS band, they just need to be unlocked from a carrier.
Secondly, SIM cards can be purchased from several locations online to use Baicells PLMN 314030. You can also purchase blank SIM cards and burn your own SIMs using a smart card reader off Amazon, and a Windows program. You just need to figure out your PLMN codes and ISMI codes, or you can build a private network using the private 999001 PLMN and develop your own ISMI codes off the private PLMN.
Using Baicells OMC with CloudCore and HaloB along with cheap used Nova 227 LTE Radios and burning your own SIM cards, network engineers can build their own cheap LTE home lab.