Category Archives: LTE

Hologram.io Offers Developers Free Cell Data

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If you’ve been thinking of adding cellular connectivity to a build, here’s a way to try out a new service for free. Hologram.io has just announced a Developer Plan that will give you 1 megabyte of cellular data per month. The company also offers hardware to use with the SIM, but they bill themselves as hardware agnostic. Hologram is about providing a SIM card and the API necessary to use it with the hardware of your choice: any 2G, 3G, 4G, or LTE devices will work with the service.

At 1 MB/month it’s obvious that this is aimed at the …read more

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LTE IMSI Catcher

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GSM IMSI catchers preyed on a cryptographic misstep in the GSM protocol. But we have LTE now, why worry? No one has an LTE IMSI catcher, right? Wrong. [Domi] is here with a software-defined base transceiver station that will catch your IMSI faster than you can say “stingray” (YouTube video, embedded below).

First of all, what is an IMSI? IMSI stands for International Mobile Subscriber Identity. If an IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) is your license plate, your IMSI would be your driver’s license. The IMEI is specific to the phone. Your IMSI is used to identify you, allowing phone …read more

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Networking services startup Cradlepoint lands $89M investment from TCV

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Network diagram In a world where having internet connectivity is the lifeblood of just about every business, Cradlepoint helps customers deliver consistent networking services, even when there is a lousy cell signal. Today the company announced it had secured an $89 million Series C investment from TCV. TCV is the only investor this round, and as part of the deal TCV’s general partner Ted Coons and… Read More Continue reading Networking services startup Cradlepoint lands $89M investment from TCV→

33C3: Dissecting 3G/4G Phone Modems

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[LaForge] and [Holger] have been hacking around on cell phones for quite a while now, and this led to them working on the open cellphone at OpenMoko and developing the OsmocomBB GSM SDR software. Now, they are turning their sights on 3G and 4G modems, mostly because they would like to use them inside their own devices, but would also like to make them accessible to the broader hacker community. In this talk at the 33rd Chaos Communications Congress (33C3), they discuss their progress in making this darkest part of the modern smartphone useful for the rest of us.

This …read more

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Solving ISP problem with a Homebrew LTE Yagi

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We’ve heard reports that internet connectivity in Australia can be an iffy proposition, and [deandob] seems to back that up. At the limit of a decent DSL connection and on the fringe of LTE, [deandob] decided to optimize the wireless connection with this homebrew Yagi antenna.

Officially known as the Yagi-Uda after its two Japanese inventors from the 1920s, but generally shortened to the name of its less involved but quicker to patent inventor, the Yagi is an antenna that provides high gain in one direction. That a homebrew antenna was even necessary at all is due to [deandob]’s ISP …read more

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A Field Guide to the North American Communications Tower

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The need for clear and reliable communication has driven technology forward for centuries. The longer communication’s reach, the smaller the world becomes. When it comes to cell phones, seamless network coverage and low power draw are the ideals that continually spawn R&D and the eventual deployment of new equipment.

Almost all of us carry a cell phone these days. It takes a lot of infrastructure to support them, whether or not we use them as phones. The most recognizable part of that infrastructure is the communications tower. But what do you know about them?

What Is a Communications Tower?

Communication …read more

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