Software Defined Radio Implementation of CloudRAN GSM Emergency Service

The increasing availability of computing power enables new paradigms of radio communication services. The centralized baseband processing of cellular networks reveals some interesting features such as a high degree of re-configurability, high efficiency in terms of processing power and consumed energy, fast deployment especially useful in the case of unplanned emergency networks. Moreover, in the last years free software implementation of the GSM cellular stack has been provided by the open source community, allowing the realization of custom GSM networks with off-the-shelf low cost products. This paper reports an indoor multi-cell experimental deployment of GSM voice and message communications services with low-cost SDR technology. The experimental setup is characterized by a centralized processing of baseband signals, delivered with optical fiber links to RF heads. Quality of experience and resources usage analysis has been performed and reported as an evaluation of the feasibility of this approach with low-cost HW and devices.