The Miserable State of Modems and Mobile Network Operators
blog.golioth.io
blog.golioth.io
Why would a SEP license forbid publishing modem firmware? The IP[0] involved with the modem firmware is copyrighted and trade secret material; publishing the firmware does not (and cannot) grant a patent license to those licensed standards-essential patents. It only imperils your implementation of the modem firmware, not the whole patent spec.
To wit, Cisco publishes an H.264 codec with BSD-licensed code, even though H.264 is under a shitload of patents that they are licensing. OpenH264 does ship with an additional patent sublicense that applies if you are using their build and installing it in a specific way, but that is particular to MPEG-LA's licensing structure[1]. Publishing an implementation of a patent you are licensing does not automatically sublicense the patent.
[0] Laws that grant the ability to dictate the conduct of your competitors
[1] Cisco is abusing(?) the MPEG-LA royalty fee cap to shield FOSS entities from having to take a license, basically, by paying for them.
I’d bet it’s simpler. Saying “yes” to the ‘can we share this outside of this company?’ Question means a lot of work and meetings and red tape and somebody is going to have to rope in legal and … and … and …
Or, “no, get back to work”.
Also, it’s very simple: Imagine you approach Qualcomm. The script probably goes something like this:
“Sure, we’ll license you that patent, for $0.92 per device, a $25K per month maintenance fee, and compliance with our terms and conditions - chiefly, don’t license this patent to anyone else, and don’t share the source code of your implementation.”
So the firmware is locked down. To do otherwise will break spectrum licensing as the device then becomes capable of doing things outside the original licensed purpose.
And then Intel still goes and makes their "automatic geolocation for frequency policy based on neighboring APs" mechanism the default and only policy in their wireless Wi-Fi drivers.
So what. Take pretty much any older transceiver, swap out the quartz(es) and suddenly what used to be a ham radio can now communicate with police radios, or a commercial radio can be converted for ham use.
Yes, of course the former case is illegal and the latter legal as long as you don't transmit without a callsign and a ham license. But still, radio manufacturers were not required to stop people from doing such mods - to the contrary, up until the 90s it was commonplace to have detailed schematics and BOMs in radios, and it was just as commonplace for people to mod their radios.
I don't get why the FCC is putting up so much pressure on locking down devices ffs.
You have a similar requirement for DFS handling on 5-7Ghz wifi as well, specifically for radar detection and transmission disable when an operating radar is detected: 47 CFR 15.407(i)(1) ( https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/part-15#p-15.407(i)(1) ) -- This version of the requirement is what triggered the wifi aps lockdown issues back in 2016.
The communicated view of the FCC is generally that devices that easily permit operation outside the 'licensed boundaries' essentially become radio nuisances. A plurality of vendors will then essentially act aggressively to lock down their devices. If they don't, the FCC will and has leveraged the FTC to prevent import and impound shipping of such devices. Some other nations do something similar as well.
All that is probably ripe for a Chevron challenge, but even if you have a case that could win in court, taking the FCC to court is fraught, at best. It's definitely not for the faint of heart. In the case of big companies and vendors, where most of the IP for 4G/LTE/5G lives anyway, it would be pretty strictly a commercial mistake to pick that fight.
As for the political reasons they do it, it boils down to funding and the political fights that produced the system of auctioned spectrum and gatekept spectrum we have today. Tearing some of that system down is more likely to succeed. I have no idea what the second and third order effects of that would be though.
Keeping the implementation secret as a condition of licensing the patent is not entirely unimaginable. It would be, however, very, very stupid (if you aren't outright evil), and not provide any extra licensing rents to the SEP holders. In the video world they don't do this; because everyone expects that anyone actually shipping a codec is going to pay[0].
But then again this is also cellular firmware; implementing standards owned by Qualcomm. And Qualcomm loves pushing the boundaries of how anticompetitive you can be with legal monopolies before actually violating competition law. They're the ones that saddled the US with "CDMA" "standards"[1] that put half of America's carriers on incompatible networks with phones you couldn't migrate to other networks. (Even other CDMA networks!) If Qualcomm had their way, they'd own LTE and 5G lock, stock, and barrel with the only modems you can buy being buried in a Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC.
[0] That's not to say that video SEP owners are particularly happy right now. The head of MPEG insists he was sacked for, among other things, complaining about MPEG's inability to standardize a royalty-free codec under ISO's patent disclosure rules.
[1] Including a competing standards body to 3GPP called, I shit you not, 3GPP2.
Contracts and money.
> The IP[0] involved with the modem firmware is copyrighted and trade secret material; publishing the firmware does not (and cannot) grant a patent license to those licensed standards-essential patents. It only imperils your implementation of the modem firmware, not the whole patent spec.
Publishing the source to the firmware would allow people to make use of patented tech without paying for it even though it would be illegal to do so. Also, your license may simply stipulate that you cannot publish or share your code in anyway outside the company.
> To wit, Cisco publishes an H.264 codec with BSD-licensed code, even though H.264 is under a shitload of patents that they are licensing. > Cisco is abusing(?) the MPEG-LA royalty fee cap to shield FOSS entities from having to take a license, basically, by paying for them.
As you point out here, Cisco is paying for it. They publish open code, and to ensure the LA doesn't come after them, they're paying additional money.
You might want to use that data, and algorithms derived from it, to improve your device's battery life. That data obviously cannot be patented, and while the lab data would be copyrighted and not part of the finished product, Qualcomm would understandably be mighty particular about any open-source code implementing the conclusions.
It was product incorporating the patented tech, i.e. ready to use binaries, that required licensing.
Cisco paid the licensing fees to enable easily downloadable h.264 codec for certain projects, but you could legally build it from source yourself.
IIRC h.265 had similar licensing
Cisco is paying for the binary provided. Not the source code. There are plenty of patented and open source. Every H.264, H.265, H.266 Encoder and Decoder in existence and used.
There are also plenty of open source 4G and 5G software implementation.
I sometimes wonder if I should just give up the fight for patent misinformation. On HN it is very binary, either good or bad. And all patents and Ads are evil.
Small Internet connected devices are still needed, despite the perception that IoT is dead. Mobile networks and the modem supply chain are definitely holding the market back. On the plus side, for stationary powered devices most people are happy to connect to wi-fi. For low power devices, LoRa, with private gateways, seems to be a standard. Mobile that is used in outdoor vehicle and asset tracking is still stuck with fighting with modems as per OP.
We install in industrial environments where an accessible internet connection is far from a given, having LTE on all our devices means that we can almost always give the device a way to call home. I can strongly recommend Compulab's devices, which you can purchase as a fully assembled unit that just needs a SIM card put in it (I can't recommend the Linux distribution they run, but you're free to flash them with whatever you'd like).
When I did this about 10 years ago we had quite a number to pick from. Build your own was possible. But that was only because of our organization had the capability and expertise to do it. We settled on 3 off the shelf ones. That was dependent on cost and number of I/O the customer was needing.
DiY basically is 'first make your own computer with the ARM/MIPS/x86 chipsets' then 'spin your own special firmware for it'. Then 'build your own ground up linux distro or similar with compiler chain and SDK to work with it'. You may be able to get someone to sell/give you a reference layout/SDK. Then after all of that. You are now ready to add in a modem. Also prepare for the certifications of all the mobile networks you want to run on. Plus software for you to interact with the cell modem. Oh also you need to work on getting yourself provisioned correctly in the mobile networks. When you do for five devices it is a couple hours of playing with an API. But you probably want hundreds of them so be prepared for managing that, plus billing. Oh also you need to manage EoL for your parts. Many IoT installations are looking at you hanging around for 10+ years.
AFAIK the modem maker actually does this. You would rather check that the chip is certified for what you need before you buy.
> also you need to work on getting yourself provisioned correctly in the mobile networks
AFAIK also, this is a service provided by "virtual operators", companies that pass deals with the main operators and provide advanced services for machine-to-machine uses, for instance.
But perhaps these didn't exist 10 years ago. Things really started to move where I operate when they EoL'd copper wires.
On the consumer side, QNAP offers both a NAS and network switch based on Marvell CN9130.
Thanks for the rec. This board looks promising, including Debian/Yocto support, and they apparently have an option for hardware customization, https://www.compulab.com/products/sbcs/sbc-iot-imx8plus-nxp-...
As an end user, I prefer my devices use Bluetooth and a hub device like a phone or laptop, rather than each one have a direct mobile connection.
I've been playing with bluetooth and looking into the mesh networking a little bit lately, so I'm curious the trade offs and decision making that goes into a real product.
For "reliability" read "availability". Cellular networks are profitable because carriers serve customers that are easy to serve and leave the rest alone. Vehicle 2 Vehicle communications mediated by cellular is a non-starter because people drive a lot in places where cell phones don't work. Wireless internet has been a false hope that's spoiled realistic plans for universal service because it's only affordable in markets that are already served. Large-scale government and corporate IoT programs find that 20% or more of stations are in places without service, etc.
Win? No! The local government is very proud of itself for having pulled a rabbit out of its hat. It turns out that a cell tower is useless without backhaul, and the government rolled out so much red tape that Crown Castle determined that they would never recover the costs of installing the backhaul and abandoned the entire project. The local government somehow considers this to be a victory.
[1] I've got a suspicion that Tracfones ride the back of the bus and get worse service than you'd get with a premium-priced plan.
> Other TracFone brands are up in the air. I have gotten reports of priority data (and seen it myself on SafeLink, a TracFone brand) but I’ve also gotten reports of deprioritized data, complete with screenshots. It seems to be random what people get so if you absolutely require priority data, it might be best to look outside of the TracFone brands.
WiFi tends to be simpler in part because the protocol authors are working more in the interest of the implementers, since it's really they who decide whether to adopt or not. Obviously a gross simplification but I think it's at the heart of the problem.
My take is that telecom operators forcefully had to evolve from Morse and copper to IP and radio, hacking stuff left and right every step of the way.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Multimedia_Subsystem#Archit...
In contrast there were the Qualcomm CMDA standards which were all proprietary and in-house, which had some upsides, but in the end carriers preferred the open standard with vendor competition.
There's a book called "GSM and UMTS: The Creation of Global Mobile Communication" about the history which is really interesting.
I guess there needs to be a big initial effort with lots of maintaining afterwards. If everything goes as expected the AIs could provide that in the future.
If it can be done for BLE, 802.15.4 and WiFi, it can be done for cellular; ORAN is enough for base-stations so it's not totally secret. But at the end of the day, aside from the stupid ITU protocols, LTE/5g isn't rocket science. It's bog standard OFDMA radio -- nothing fancy these days.
I ended up reverse engineering parts of Sony's Altair derived modems but got bored, maybe I should publish that
Magnificent article. Clearly shows his expertise going down the sh*/rabbit hole, the more I read, the more dismal it got.
Clearly the way to get around the technical side of the DNS bug, is to do what cell providers do: Start the device in the office of the provider, and let the DNS resolve there, and if it does not work, get a ticket started right then and there.
Out in the field... use another devices Wifi, and do the same thing.
If you cannot get cell phone service or Wifi, then ( I literally took about 45 mins on the phone to T-Mobile, which immediately refused to take responsibility, and also refused to put anything in writing: Then their recommendation is to get a satellite link with, StarLink!. I would rather be slapped in the face with a cold fish.
Cell phone service providers all let this happen, until of course they almost all sold out to T-Moble. ( LifeLine, Assurnace, etc.. )
Second, it made me think about the new Apple C1 modem. They must have had to comb through those specs as well, and it makes me wonder if will allow them to better integrate the modem in the kernel in the end?