Project status update as of 2026 June 23
Some people on That Other Site are asking about the status of my work with regard to the various GSM/2G-related projects I lead, most important of which is A2GC. I am still unable to post on that evil site, so I am going to post this summary here and then rely on other people to post a link in r/vintagemobilephones.
Here are my project-related activities at the present moment:
- A lot of my time and energy went into the still-ongoing migration of old FreeCalypso archives and repositories to my new server. While I cannot share the full details without violating other people's privacy, our old server setup that goes back to 2015 had some fundamental flaws in its design that went too deep to be fixed organically via small incremental changes - hence wholesale migration to an entirely new server was the only solution I could come up with. The current status of this migration is that all static files have been moved over, but there is no public access to Hg repositories at the moment. Restoring public access to these Hg repos is a remaining high-priority task on this front.
- The latest word from T-Mobile is that they are going to shut down what is left of their unloved GSM/2G network on August 3. As of the present moment I still rely on that network for within-family communication during times away from home. Given this imminent threat of shutdown, I have to put a higher priority on a side project that has been on my mind for some years now: set up a portable GSM BTS in my car, a sort of personal "cell on wheels", with a Raspberry Pi serving as the BSC, using an LTE mobile Internet link to connect to the fixed server that acts as the MSC. I have a separate post for discussion of that idea.
- Once I get past the two urgent tasks listed above (both of which count as "putting out fires"), my main goal toward A2GC proper is to implement the new MSC that has been an outstanding need for a while now. We need to have this MSC implemented before we can operate a proper, above-ground GSM network, and I have set a personal goal to implement it before the end of 2026.
- Macrocell BTS for above-ground GSM deployment: just like I said in my last days on Reddit, we (A2GC) have settled on Nokia BTS hardware, specifically Flexi Multiradio family. We have radio modules for both GSM850 and PCS1900 bands, as well as system and transport modules to go with them. Multiradio concept means that a single radio module can put out any combination of 2G, 3G and/or 4G RATs (radio access technologies), either by connecting multiple system modules (one for each RAT) to the same radio module(s), or by using the newer FSMF (Multiradio 10) system module that does all 3 RATs in one. Since our primary focus is on GSM/2G RAT only, we have stocked up on 2G-specific ESMB system modules, but we can also switch to FSMF if need be. The setup of ESMB driving a Multiradio RFM, with Osmocom BSC driving the ESMB via icE1usb, has already been proven working in our lab. Some further improvements to OsmoBSC software are needed: in particular, we need to teach OsmoBSC how to drive all 3 sectors on the same BCF, which is the config required for a standard 3-sector site. I plan to get back to these OsmoBSC improvements after Hera MSC, which is the previous point.
One detail which I need to re-emphasize with each of these periodic status updates is that we are not going to begin the process of applying for a license with FCC, or even make a final decision as to exactly which geographic location we are going to pursue first, until after we complete a whole bunch of preparatory work. The prep work which we need to complete before applying for our first license consists of Hera MSC (see item 3 above), OsmoBSC improvements for 3-sector macrocell BTS (see item 4 above), and also some FPGA work which I will write about later, creating a low-latency, production-quality interface from OsmoBSC and tw-e1abis-mgw to E1 Abis.
The reason for doing things in this order has to do with FCC rules section 22.946: once we get our first GSM850 license, a clock will start ticking, and we will need to bring our first GSM system fully live within 1 year of license grant. Needless to say, we should do as much of our homework as possible before we start this clock! All work on BSC and MSC components is location-independent, in that all technical requirements remain exactly the same no matter which location we deploy in, and also the same between GSM850 and PCS1900 bands - hence it makes the most sense to complete all of this work before beginning negotiations with property owners at our envisioned candidate locations.
In conclusion: Rome was not built in one day, and we still have a long road ahead of us before we go to the steps of finalizing on a specific location and applying for a license there. But we are not giving up, and the necessary background work is still ongoing.
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(I am posting this part as a follow-up comment, rather than a "proper" post of its own, to make it clear that the "drama" part is strictly subordinate to, and holds a lower importance than the technical project part.)
I became aware of this post on Reddit, where some hapless member of r/vintagemobilephones community (someone named
u/smartiphone7_) was looking for me (or more precisely, looking for updates on the work of American 2G Cooperative) and discovered that I am wrongfully banned from Reddit for reasons that had nothing to do with my participation in the VMP community or any other technical subs. I made an earlier post here on Lemmy in which I explained what happened, and thisu/smartiphone7_person also links (in the referenced Reddit post) to a version of my "What happened on Reddit" Lemmy post, linked via some search app that picked up my post via another instance.I am making the present comment because some of the comments under the linked Reddit post contain some misconceptions that need to be rebutted. Since I am obviously unable to comment on Reddit, and since platform-neutral people who care about the actual topic of Retro (or vintage) Mobile Phones may come across that Reddit post and its tree of comments, I am making my rebuttal here.
u/smartiphone7_wrote that I was banned from Reddit for inappropriate comments regarding my "anti vaxx views". That statement is inaccurate: while I do indeed hold views that can be described as anti-vaxx (more precisely, I believe that there is nothing more horrible than remaining alive in a body that has been irreparably defiled by injections of something you did not want), I am also very strongly pro-choice on the thorny question of suicide. In some instances my pro-suicide views are directly linked to my anti-vaxx views: in particular, I highly honor and revere those beautiful souls who ended their Earthly lives in order to avoid forced vaccination, and whenever I encounter a vaxxed person who wishes to Exit because they are vaxxed and do not wish to go on living in such defiled body, my duty as a Goddess priestess compels me to give them the necessary spiritual support - and sometimes also technical support with the means of CTB, if they ask for such. However, the comment that got me banned had absolutely nothing to do with vaccines or my stance on them: instead it was a fellow trans woman posting in r/honesttransgender, a sub mostly populated by those living on the darker side of the rainbow, and she was posting about her sincere desire to die. Why did she wish to die? Just read it in her own words, please. She asked some very specific questions, and I replied with specific, on-point answers - nothing more and nothing less. Yet as soon as I clicked Post on that comment, Reddit's site-wide AI perma-banned my account.Also note that the fateful comment that got me banned is now visible, as opposed to the usual reading of “[ Removed by Reddit ]” - why do you think it is? Answer: because I appealed that ban as soon as it was issued, and after some time got this response:
Given the above development, why is my account still banned? I wonder if it has something to do with this "notification", which I received about 10 hours after the initial ban:
Note the reference to "your other account(s)". I did some web searches, and it looks like when someone has multiple accounts which Reddit's zealous fingerprinting system has concluded are controlled by the same human, the one account that made the transgression gets the "regular" ban message, while all other accounts also receive bans - and those alt-account bans receive ban messages just like the second one I got. The problem in my case, however, is that I never had a second account! I only had that one MotherMychaela account, I never created an alt prior to the ban, and I made no attempts to create any new account(s) after the ban either. Yet Reddit must have applied a "double" ban to my MotherMychaela account, first as primary and then as a hallucinated alt. Then the "primary" cause for the ban has been successfully appealed, but my account is still blocked due to their AI hallucinating about me having an alt - and they don't provide any mechanism anywhere to appeal this vector!
Back to the Reddit VMP post I am replying to,
u/yaky-devmade this comment:This person's "helpful suggestion" that I should have used separate Reddit accounts to post "project" vs "opinion" content would not have helped in the slightest. Reddit employs extremely zealous fingerprinting to detect multiple accounts controlled by the same human, and if any one of those accounts draws the ire of their soulless, AI-driven corporate admins, all accounts traced to the same human get banned!