Cell phone "repeater"

One of my accounts is a school in which I take care of the fire alarm system. They have asked me to see if it would be possible for me to come up with some type of system whereby they might be able to improve their spotty cell phone reception throughout the building. The maintenance supervisor has heard of a type of "repeater" (if that is the correct term) that can be employed to accomplish this but truthfully at this point he seems to know more about it than I do. Would this be some type of diversity transceiver with multiple antennas throughout the building? This seems like it could be a fairly lucrative thing for me if I can find out enough about doing it. Can someone more familiar with this please enlighten me as to theory, structure of and design of the system, and equipment suppliers in the US? The structure which concerns me is block wall inside, (class rooms) and out. Thanks for any assistance. Lenny

 

[nanicoar]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 09:31:40 -0700, captainvideo462009 waxed lyrical:

One of my accounts is a school in which I take care of the fire alarm
system. They have asked me to see if it would be possible for me to come
up with some type of system whereby they might be able to improve their
spotty cell phone reception throughout the building. The maintenance
supervisor has heard of a type of "repeater" (if that is the correct
term) that can be employed to accomplish this but truthfully at this
point he seems to know more about it than I do. Would this be some type
of diversity transceiver with multiple antennas throughout the building?
This seems like it could be a fairly lucrative thing for me if I can
find out enough about doing it. Can someone more familiar with this
please enlighten me as to theory, structure of and design of the system,
and equipment suppliers in the US? The structure which concerns me is
block wall inside, (class rooms) and out. Thanks for any assistance.
Lenny

When you set up your own GSM base station you are able to pretend you are
any carrier and intercept any nearby GSM communication. News about these
commercially available devices has been spreading since a few years
back, and currently they cost at least tens of thousands of ¤ if they
will sell you any at all.


Fortunately a much cheaper and potentially more invasive hardware option
exists in the form software defined radio, which is are rapidly coming
down in prices. For another few hundred ¤ in hardware which isn't
specialized you can break the GSM encryption and do whatever the hell you
want with people's private conversations.

Unfortunately you give me the 'wise guy' vibe and In contrast to my usual
openness about these things I can not in good conscience clue you in any
further.

--
Nos

 

[Cydrome Leader]

nanicoar <ceriel@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 09:31:40 -0700, captainvideo462009 waxed lyrical:

One of my accounts is a school in which I take care of the fire alarm
system. They have asked me to see if it would be possible for me to come
up with some type of system whereby they might be able to improve their
spotty cell phone reception throughout the building. The maintenance
supervisor has heard of a type of "repeater" (if that is the correct
term) that can be employed to accomplish this but truthfully at this
point he seems to know more about it than I do. Would this be some type
of diversity transceiver with multiple antennas throughout the building?
This seems like it could be a fairly lucrative thing for me if I can
find out enough about doing it. Can someone more familiar with this
please enlighten me as to theory, structure of and design of the system,
and equipment suppliers in the US? The structure which concerns me is
block wall inside, (class rooms) and out. Thanks for any assistance.
Lenny

When you set up your own GSM base station you are able to pretend you are
any carrier and intercept any nearby GSM communication. News about these
commercially available devices has been spreading since a few years
back, and currently they cost at least tens of thousands of ? if they
will sell you any at all.


Fortunately a much cheaper and potentially more invasive hardware option
exists in the form software defined radio, which is are rapidly coming
down in prices. For another few hundred ? in hardware which isn't
specialized you can break the GSM encryption and do whatever the hell you
want with people's private conversations.

Unfortunately you give me the 'wise guy' vibe and In contrast to my usual
openness about these things I can not in good conscience clue you in any
further.

Whoah, secret information control.

just go here for more info on SDRs

http://www.windycitysdr.com/

 

[chuck]

On Wed, 30 Apr 2014 08:11:42 +0000 (UTC), nanicoar <ceriel@gmail.com>
wrote:

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 09:31:40 -0700, captainvideo462009 waxed lyrical:

One of my accounts is a school in which I take care of the fire alarm
system. They have asked me to see if it would be possible for me to come
up with some type of system whereby they might be able to improve their
spotty cell phone reception throughout the building. The maintenance
supervisor has heard of a type of "repeater" (if that is the correct
term) that can be employed to accomplish this but truthfully at this
point he seems to know more about it than I do. Would this be some type
of diversity transceiver with multiple antennas throughout the building?
This seems like it could be a fairly lucrative thing for me if I can
find out enough about doing it. Can someone more familiar with this
please enlighten me as to theory, structure of and design of the system,
and equipment suppliers in the US? The structure which concerns me is
block wall inside, (class rooms) and out. Thanks for any assistance.
Lenny

When you set up your own GSM base station you are able to pretend you are
any carrier and intercept any nearby GSM communication. News about these
commercially available devices has been spreading since a few years
back, and currently they cost at least tens of thousands of ¤ if they
will sell you any at all.


Fortunately a much cheaper and potentially more invasive hardware option
exists in the form software defined radio, which is are rapidly coming
down in prices. For another few hundred ¤ in hardware which isn't
specialized you can break the GSM encryption and do whatever the hell you
want with people's private conversations.

Unfortunately you give me the 'wise guy' vibe and In contrast to my usual
openness about these things I can not in good conscience clue you in any
further.

If you think Lenny is a "wise guy", you haven't had dealings with a
real one. I wish you could have met some of the colorful men I knew
back east during the 60s. The difference would be readily apparent.
Lenny is a legit technician from rural New Hampshire.

 

[nanicoar]

On Wed, 30 Apr 2014 08:50:30 -0500, chuck waxed lyrical:

On Wed, 30 Apr 2014 08:11:42 +0000 (UTC), nanicoar <ceriel@gmail.com
wrote:

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 09:31:40 -0700, captainvideo462009 waxed lyrical:

<snip>

I wish you could have met some of the colorful men I knew back
east during the 60s.

Oh, USENET. Never change. (I know you won't. <3 )

> Lenny is a legit technician from rural New Hampshire.

Okay, that's good enough for me. I'm from Finland myself.


https://greatscottgadgets.com/hackrf/

It should be hitting the shelves in June. Price tag is 299 USD.

To decrypt A51 you need 2TB of fast storage, an OpenCL-capable GPU and a
decent PC. A single 2TB spinning disk will be enough for the rainbow
tables.

The new 3G encryption is, incredibly, faster to break than the old
encryption. Rumors of high-level sabotage abound.

For legitimate use you would need to implement in software the repeater
functionality mentioned. Software like this however isn't a one-shot deal
so someone would need gainful employment developing it. That person would
however have all the power of the NSA wherever you install your gear, so
no matter who they are they can not be trusted to stick to principles of
ethics.

On a wide-scale implementation you would probably be transmitting some
encrypted data to Amazon's EC2 cloud and getting the encryption keys back
whenever you have a new user, meaning the actual hardware on-site is
actually rather cheap. Since work goes into this process you would
probably charge per-user, data mine whatever they access, and sell the
resulting PII on the open market.

I could be very rich, you know...

--
Nos

 

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 12:31:40 PM UTC-4, captainvi...@gmail.com wrote:
> One of my accounts is a school in which I take care of the fire alarm system. They have asked me to see if it would be possible for me to come up with some type of system whereby they might be able to improve their spotty cell phone reception throughout the building. The maintenance supervisor has heard of a type of "repeater" (if that is the correct term) that can be employed to accomplish this but truthfully at this point he seems to know more about it than I do. Would this be some type of diversity transceiver with multiple antennas throughout the building? This seems like it could be a fairly lucrative thing for me if I can find out enough about doing it. Can someone more familiar with this please enlighten me as to theory, structure of and design of the system, and equipment suppliers in the US? The structure which concerns me is block wall inside, (class rooms) and out. Thanks for any assistance. Lenny

Nos
It must have been a cold Winter in Finland because your brain is obviously frozen. I have to ask myself are you even trying to answer my question, or are you making wild assumptions and answering someone else's question? I have no interest in breaking any codes, taping into other peoples cell phone conversations or doing anything illegal for that matter. So your "wise guy" receiver's detector is in serious need of adjustment, or perhaps you might be....And even if I was, I would certainly be a damn fool to do it for a municipality.

If you'll take the time to re read my post, I'm simply trying to make it so that people using their cell phones within the building will not have so many dead spots through out the school. Lenny

 

[nanicoar]

On Thu, 01 May 2014 09:06:12 -0700, captainvideo462009 waxed lyrical:

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 12:31:40 PM UTC-4, captainvi...@gmail.com
wrote:

<snip>

Nos It must have been a cold Winter in Finland because your brain is
obviously frozen. I have to ask myself are you even trying to answer my
question, or are you making wild assumptions and answering someone
else's question? I have no interest in breaking any codes, taping into
other peoples cell phone conversations or doing anything illegal for
that matter. So your "wise guy" receiver's detector is in serious need
of adjustment, or perhaps you might be....And even if I was, I would
certainly be a damn fool to do it for a municipality.

If you'll take the time to re read my post, I'm simply trying to make it
so that people using their cell phones within the building will not have
so many dead spots through out the school. Lenny

How rude! Is this typical rural New Hampshire address?

--
Nos

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 09:31:40 -0700 (PDT), captainvideo462009@gmail.com
wrote:

>One of my accounts is a school in which I take care of the fire alarm system. They have asked me to see if it would be possible for me to come up with some type of system whereby they might be able to improve their spotty cell phone reception throughout the building. The maintenance supervisor has heard of a type of "repeater" (if that is the correct term) that can be employed to accomplish this but truthfully at this point he seems to know more about it than I do. Would this be some type of diversity transceiver with multiple antennas throughout the building? This seems like it could be a fairly lucrative thing for me if I can find out enough about doing it. Can someone more familiar with this please enlighten me as to theory, structure of and design of the system, and equipment suppliers in the US? The structure which concerns me is block wall inside, (class rooms) and out. Thanks for any assistance. Lenny

You'll want to cover all the available vendors, bands, and modulation
schemes, so a Nanocellular box from a cellular vendor isn't going to
work. I have a few of these in service:
<http://www.zboost.com>
<http://www.wilsonelectronics.com>
They work, with some limitations. The big one is that the range from
the repeater is only about 15 meters. The signal also doesn't
penetrate many types of walls. It will work in open areas, such as
shopping malls, auditoriums, gyms, and such, but individual classrooms
are going to be a problem. There's no way you can cover the inside of
a skool with just one unit, so that may also be a problem. I suggest
you cover the public areas, and ignore the rest.

Inside zboost:
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/zBoost/antenna-end.jpg>
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/zBoost/zBoost-YX510-PCS-CEL.jpg>
As you might suspect, that much electronics is not going to be cheap.


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Tom Miller]

"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:v5v4m9p7qht9dthe5tn36u1j63cp7onjmc@4ax.com...

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 09:31:40 -0700 (PDT), captainvideo462009@gmail.com
wrote:

One of my accounts is a school in which I take care of the fire alarm
system. They have asked me to see if it would be possible for me to come
up with some type of system whereby they might be able to improve their
spotty cell phone reception throughout the building. The maintenance
supervisor has heard of a type of "repeater" (if that is the correct term)
that can be employed to accomplish this but truthfully at this point he
seems to know more about it than I do. Would this be some type of
diversity transceiver with multiple antennas throughout the building? This
seems like it could be a fairly lucrative thing for me if I can find out
enough about doing it. Can someone more familiar with this please
enlighten me as to theory, structure of and design of the system, and
equipment suppliers in the US? The structure which concerns me is block
wall inside, (class rooms) and out. Thanks for any assistance. Lenny

You'll want to cover all the available vendors, bands, and modulation
schemes, so a Nanocellular box from a cellular vendor isn't going to
work. I have a few of these in service:
http://www.zboost.com
http://www.wilsonelectronics.com
They work, with some limitations. The big one is that the range from
the repeater is only about 15 meters. The signal also doesn't
penetrate many types of walls. It will work in open areas, such as
shopping malls, auditoriums, gyms, and such, but individual classrooms
are going to be a problem. There's no way you can cover the inside of
a skool with just one unit, so that may also be a problem. I suggest
you cover the public areas, and ignore the rest.

Inside zboost:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/zBoost/antenna-end.jpg
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/zBoost/zBoost-YX510-PCS-CEL.jpg
As you might suspect, that much electronics is not going to be cheap.


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Not only that but there is a new FCC rule that requires all BDA system
installations be registered.

tm

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Thu, 1 May 2014 13:11:23 -0400, "Tom Miller"
<tmiller11147@verizon.net> wrote:

Not only that but there is a new FCC rule that requires all BDA system
installations be registered.

The registration requirement is for Part 90 licensees (non-consumer
wireless) that use class B (broadband) bi-directional amps. For
example, a fire department might use it to get a sufficiently strong
signal inside their building to operate pagers and HT's. So far, 827
users have bothered to register their BDA's.

<http://www.fcc.gov/document/part-90-class-b-signal-booster-registration-tool-now-available>
<https://signalboosters.fcc.gov/signal-boosters/>
<https://signalboosters.fcc.gov/signal-boosters/list>

To the best of my limited knowledge, there is currently no
registration or licensing requirement for cellular BDA's.


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Tom Miller]

"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:eip5m95n2fu7t7f1ild3qimu5rp0o02juj@4ax.com...

On Thu, 1 May 2014 13:11:23 -0400, "Tom Miller"
tmiller11147@verizon.net> wrote:

Not only that but there is a new FCC rule that requires all BDA system
installations be registered.

The registration requirement is for Part 90 licensees (non-consumer
wireless) that use class B (broadband) bi-directional amps. For
example, a fire department might use it to get a sufficiently strong
signal inside their building to operate pagers and HT's. So far, 827
users have bothered to register their BDA's.

http://www.fcc.gov/document/part-90-class-b-signal-booster-registration-tool-now-available
https://signalboosters.fcc.gov/signal-boosters/
https://signalboosters.fcc.gov/signal-boosters/list

To the best of my limited knowledge, there is currently no
registration or licensing requirement for cellular BDA's.

Fair enough Jeff. Also, it is only needed for Class B BDAs, i.e. broadband
vs. channelized.

What do the wireless carriers do to mitigate BDA interference? If you
install one to provide cell coverage, is it not an unlicensed transmitter?

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Thu, 1 May 2014 21:28:48 -0400, "Tom Miller"
<tmiller11147@verizon.net> wrote:

Fair enough Jeff. Also, it is only needed for Class B BDAs, i.e.
broadband vs. channelized.

Here's the latest from the FCC:
<http://wireless.fcc.gov/signal-boosters/index.html>
<http://wireless.fcc.gov/signal-boosters/faq.html>
<http://www.fcc.gov/document/use-and-design-signal-boosters-report-and-order>

More (or less):
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_repeater>

What do the wireless carriers do to mitigate BDA interference? If you
install one to provide cell coverage, is it not an unlicensed transmitter?

I don't know as I'm not involved in that part of the puzzle. I have
read some reports where the cellular provider had to go to the FCC to
get some fool with a broken signal booster to either fix it or get it
off the air.

I couldn't find any signal boosters that currently meet the new
regulations available for sale. (I may have missed some). Officially,
one now needs the approval from the carrier to operate the device.
Since the older systems were carrier independent, that means multiple
carrier approval, which is unlikely. I called Verizon support to ask
about approval. They didn't have a clue what I was asking (especially
since I'm no longer a Verizon customer).

After the regulatory smoke clears, I think the cellular signal
boosters are a good solution if you can tolerate buying one for each
cellular provider.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Tom Miller]

"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:q766m95u5tdg16o6l3j9mquseu4j6v9irh@4ax.com...

On Thu, 1 May 2014 21:28:48 -0400, "Tom Miller"
tmiller11147@verizon.net> wrote:

Fair enough Jeff. Also, it is only needed for Class B BDAs, i.e.
broadband vs. channelized.

Here's the latest from the FCC:
http://wireless.fcc.gov/signal-boosters/index.html
http://wireless.fcc.gov/signal-boosters/faq.html
http://www.fcc.gov/document/use-and-design-signal-boosters-report-and-order

More (or less):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_repeater

What do the wireless carriers do to mitigate BDA interference? If you
install one to provide cell coverage, is it not an unlicensed transmitter?

I don't know as I'm not involved in that part of the puzzle. I have
read some reports where the cellular provider had to go to the FCC to
get some fool with a broken signal booster to either fix it or get it
off the air.

I couldn't find any signal boosters that currently meet the new
regulations available for sale. (I may have missed some). Officially,
one now needs the approval from the carrier to operate the device.
Since the older systems were carrier independent, that means multiple
carrier approval, which is unlikely. I called Verizon support to ask
about approval. They didn't have a clue what I was asking (especially
since I'm no longer a Verizon customer).

After the regulatory smoke clears, I think the cellular signal
boosters are a good solution if you can tolerate buying one for each
cellular provider.

--

I have been involved with resolving a problem with public safety 800 systems
where rebanding moved everyone down 15 MHz and backfilled with wide band
cellular. The BDAs are all open to the new RF and run into overcurrent due
to the broadband energy getting into the amps. The solution is to add a new
filter to at least the donor side of the system and improve the inside
antenna network.

Regards,
tm

 

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 12:31:40 PM UTC-4, captainvi...@gmail.com wrote:
> One of my accounts is a school in which I take care of the fire alarm system. They have asked me to see if it would be possible for me to come up with some type of system whereby they might be able to improve their spotty cell phone reception throughout the building. The maintenance supervisor has heard of a type of "repeater" (if that is the correct term) that can be employed to accomplish this but truthfully at this point he seems to know more about it than I do. Would this be some type of diversity transceiver with multiple antennas throughout the building? This seems like it could be a fairly lucrative thing for me if I can find out enough about doing it. Can someone more familiar with this please enlighten me as to theory, structure of and design of the system, and equipment suppliers in the US? The structure which concerns me is block wall inside, (class rooms) and out. Thanks for any assistance. Lenny

Thanks for the responses guys. This is starting to sound like a "job for Superman", and one I will probably let go. And I'm sorry you didn't like my "address", NOS but you opened the door to that when you just assumed that I was some "wise guy" trying to get away with something illegal. So who was being rude here? Lenny