A Free software 3G protocol implementation: Wireless3G4Free

For quite some time there has been a project called Wireless3G4Free. I suspect it is little known outside a certain academic community. So what is it all about? Creating a FOSS based test platform for wireless 3G systems. Yes, this is the so-called baseband side. The parts that are usually very carefully locked away in the proprietary stack of cellular handsets and other equipments

Even though the project, funded by the European union and implemented at EURECOM in France, is 'finished', it is not as easy as to just use that software and get UMTS connectivity.

First of all, it implements the 3.84MChip/s TDD variant of the physical layer (layer 1), whereas most commercially deployed UMTS systems for cellular access use the FDD variant. For those not as familiar with 3G technology: There's three different layer 1 options: the 3.84MChip/s TDD, the low-chip-rate Chinese TDD variant, and the FDD variant. The layer 1 is separated in two parts, one that is TDD/FDD independent, and the other part that is shared.

Secondly, the Wireless3G4Free project uses IP on the layer 3, as opposed to the actual layer 3 protocol of UMTS (which borrows a lot from the layer 3 protocol for GSM, which in turn borrows a lot from Q.931 / Euro-ISDN).

So if one was to make that code interoperate with UMTS cellular networks, the lower half of layer 1 need to be rewritten for FDD, and layer 3 needs to be implemented.

What is exciting about 3G compared to GSM: GSM uses proprietary ciphers (A5/1, A5/2) for the actual air interface. Those ciphers have leaked quite some time ago, and they're no longer secret (and thus the GSM security is no longer existing), but still people are not supposed to know how it works.

In the 3G world, the corresponding cipher is public. This means that in theory, it should be possible to implement everything in Free Software based on publicly known information. Yes, it is a lot of work. But it definitely can be done.

Before actually using this on any official network, it would obviously need to be certified. Certification for this kind of protocol is a time-consuming and expensive process. It requires development cycles of going to a certified test lab, obtaining test results, going back to actually fixing the problems, re-running the test lab tests, and so on. Nevertheless, Free Software has already proven that this can be done. The isdn4linux project did a full EDSS1 certification some 10 years ago. ELSA, a maker of passive ISDN cards, sponsored that effort. And if you used an unmodified code version, then you were certified. As soon as the source code was changed, you were running an uncertified version. I don't see any big problem why the same scheme should not work for a 3G baseband software stack.

One important question though, is the question of hardware. None of the existing commercial vendors of 3G chipsets will ever provide you with the hardware documentation that you would need or want to run that kind of code on their hardware. It is their business to sell their proprietary 3G stack along with their chip, so they would only loose money if there was any FOSS implementation in competition.

Sure, you can use something like the USRP or USRP2 or any other software defined radio platform. But while that would be ok for a proof-of-concept, it is too large, expensive and power-consuming to be used or 'ported' to any actual handset-type product.

So any possible real-world plan of making this happen would probably go as far as to implement everything based on the USRP, then have a proof-of-concept prototype and then do a modem design based on existing, openly documented RF components and ADC as well as DSP+Processor combination that is suitable for low-power operation.

Sure, I'm just daydreaming. But sometimes you have to dare to dream in order to make things happen. Anyone wanting to turn this idea into a business, let me know ;)