The WorldGSM™ Components
To drive down power, cost and size we had to design our own hardware. The result — three boxes at the core of the WorldGSM™ system:
- BlueBox™ — The low-power, low-cost BTS (Base Transceiver Station) in a box. Complete GSM Base Station functionality in a single box, including microwave backhaul. It comes in two capacities – 1 TRX and 2 TRX.
- GreenBox™ 160i — the world’s first rural-optimized
BSC (Base Station Controller). One GreenBox™ 160i supports up to 16 BTS nodes (WorldGSM™ Rural, Road or Village sites). - OrangeBox™ 600i — the compact MSC (Mobile Switching Center) for rural deployments. One OrangeBox™ supports up to 6 GreenBox™ 160i nodes, serving over 10,000 subscribers.
By foregoing the use of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) VNL has greatly reduced the cost associated with hardware development.
The result is small, low-power, low-cost hardware with the flexibility of a software-driven system.
The software
The WorldGSM™ core network is built on the MontaVista distribution of Linux. This confers the following advantages:
- Extreme stability — carrier-class uptimes
- Flexibility — to choose from a wide variety of silicon and hardware
- Ubiquity — easy to find skills and resources
- Open Source — free and easily adapted
- Wide acceptance — by operators all over the world
On top of the operating system, VNL has developed its own Linux-based version of the GSM standard on which the world’s mobile networks run.
The software covers everything from power control and stripped down handover algorithms to a wide range of compelling end user features.