Open source production-ready app store enabled base stations in 2017

Sometimes pre-announcements don't come any bigger than this: “We want to connect the unconnected with open source app-enabled base stations", "We want to help innovators launch new telecom and wireless innovations" and "We want to provide the wireless industry with new revenues”. We want to redefine the telecom and other wireless industries in three ways: exponentially cheaper equipment, that is more innovative and revenue generating.

Our first step is enabling the launch of fully fledged network in a box, by our partner Lime Microsystems. This new base station is based on LimeSDR, the open source software defined radio. We already showed Video over LTE at the TADSummit. The LimeSDR campaign has been amazing with >150% pledged, >$750,000 raised and over 3,000 backers and contributors. Everybody that bought a LimeSDR will receive it in the next months and be able to package their  software or app as a snap and upload it to the LimeNet Snap Store, the first telecom app store.

The LimeSDR enabled base station will offer features and possibilities well beyond the current implementations Here are some of its key features:

• Open Source multi-standard solution, including 4G, offered at the lowest price in the industry and in any quantity you want, starting from one unit.
• Modular: the battery, amplifier, antennas, electronics are all components that can be replaced by anyone in the same way as a desktop PC.
• Due to the modular design other non-telecom markets or sub-markets could be addressed via the choice of filters, amplifiers and antennas.
• The base station is software defined via Snaps and runs Ubuntu Core 16 which means any protocol can be supported: 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, NB-IoT, LoRa, TV broadcasting, radio broadcasting, and many more. Even custom protocols are just a Snap away.
• The base stations work with Snaps so if you design a Snap on an Ubuntu 16.04 or Ubuntu Core 16 Intel machine with a LimeSDR attached and you upload it to the LimeNet Snap Store then it will work on the new base station.
• Every organisation will be able to run their Snap Store on the base station and get certified Snaps syndicated from LimeNet. So testing and certification is done for you.
• The fact that you can run a Snap Store means you can buy from and sell Snaps to others. So each day you can launch new revenue generating solutions.
• We are working on some very unique use cases and revenue generating solutions that will completely turn the market on its head.

The spec for the new base station has been driven by BT’s EE based on which  trials could begin as early as  2017. They were the sponsor of the the LimeSDR campaign with a $99k pledge. In return they now have the attention of the key developers, researchers and Universities who shall collectively receive 100 LimeSDRs to innovate based on the requirements set out by EE.  On the other hand operators that are not involved in such initiatives are left spending their time writing RFPs and lose a lot more time and money in persuading their suppliers for innovation most relevant to them and their network. EE never mentioned the word RFP to us, we just seek for their direction and off we go. Let this be a warning to the telecom industry, innovators don't wait for you. Either there is a win-win or you just become irrelevant. Ask SpaceX about how many telco RFPs they plan on answering for their interspace network. We want any #TelcoInnovator to join and will bring them new revenues and substantially lower costs. We don't care about any #TelcoLaggard running into financial trouble into the future.

Shortly we will go deeper into each of the features of the new base stations and how and when they will be launched. What we need today is two types of contributors:

• Future base station customers that want to get ultra cheap, innovative and revenue generating base stations to put in production at small test sites in 2017 and if successful at large scale in the years to follow.
• Software and hardware innovators that can help us create solutions to demo new revenue generation solutions, new use cases, and exponentially cheaper ways of rolling out and maintaining networks.

If you are one of the above, please back our upcoming crowdfunding campaign or reach out to us because this will be a unique opportunity to connect the unconnected and generate new revenues...