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Vodafone unveils prototype 5G network built on a Raspberry Pi computer

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Re: Vodafone unveils prototype 5G network built on a Raspberry Pi computer

#81

Post by bsder »

andrewstuart wrote: post #35

This is the reason why you can't get a Raspberry Pi computer. Eben Upton, (Raspberry Pi Founder) sold out his his base. When the chip shortage hit, Upton made the decision to prioritise supply to industrial buyers over retail/hobbyists/education. His rationale was that companies that had bills to pay and salaries to pay should get priority because people's livelihoods depended on getting those Raspberry Pi's. Sounds…

You can bitch about RPIs or you can go support something else.

Lots (9000+) of Beaglebone Blacks over here -> https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/BeagleBoard-by-Seeed-St...

TI documentation is stellar (except the graphics--which nobody documents) unlike the RPi or any of it's clones. The chips are all available at volumes less than millions. You don't have to sign NDAs in order to get stuff.

The Linux is standard Debian with everything upstreamed. You have lots more pins. You have two real-time units. It doesn't need special overpowered power supplies or heatsinks--USB 2.0 500mA works just fine even without a heatsink. And you have onboard eMMC so you don't have to wonder whether the craptastic uSD card that came with your RPi is causing those strange reboots.

And the folks doing it all are woefully understaffed and undersupported.

So, everybody can sit and complain about lack of RPi's. Or they can go support something that is actually open source, available and delivering.

Yes, they had their supply issues like everybody else. But TI is happy to actually move chips in ways that Broadcom simply isn't.

Re: Vodafone unveils prototype 5G network built on a Raspberry Pi computer

#82

Post by blacksmith_tb »

mrbonner wrote: post #71
andrewstuart wrote: post #35

This is the reason why you can't get a Raspberry Pi computer. Eben Upton, (Raspberry Pi Founder) sold out his his base. When the chip shortage hit, Upton made the decision to prioritise supply to industrial buyers over retail/hobbyists/education. His rationale was that companies that had bills to pay and salaries to pay should get priority because people's livelihoods depended on getting those Raspberry Pi's. Sounds…

Why does it have to be Rpi for those kind of project, I am wondering? What stops me from buying a NIC or even a bare-board PC for the project?

A NIC? Or a NUC? I am not sure exactly how Vodafone have packed the boards in their little black box, but presumably you could DIY something similar, though I guess it helps to be a carrier for making th SIM? eSIM? work. It is sort of odd they didn't build it around the Compute Module though, I thought it was really intended for these commercial customers.

Re: Vodafone unveils prototype 5G network built on a Raspberry Pi computer

#83

Post by _joel »

monocasa wrote: post #65
_joel wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably see SBC's used more as a term for them than SoC's as they incorporate more than just the die (imho)

Well, except once you have a PCIe daughter card it's no longer an SBC; you have at least two boards right there.

No but it is before you add one, so that's the best place to start.

Re: Vodafone unveils prototype 5G network built on a Raspberry Pi computer

#84

Post by wmf »

hinkley wrote: post #4

If we could get an off the shelf SOC that's powerful enough to manage a PCIe daughter card, that would make me so happy. Software defined radio, offloaded eBPF, RAID controllers, are just the most obvious compute peripherals but there are a million others that could exist but don't. edit: acronym typo

After reading this thread a few times I realized you're asking for an SoC that is a daughter card, aka a DPU.

Re: Vodafone unveils prototype 5G network built on a Raspberry Pi computer

#85

Post by CamperBob2 »

moremetadata wrote: post #33
jbverschoor wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already sell 5g stations to use in your home when they don't have coverage.

I dont know if I want to be so close to a 5G transmitter after reading this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34778597/

It turns out that the barriers to publication on pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov are very low.

Re: Vodafone unveils prototype 5G network built on a Raspberry Pi computer

#86

Post by wumms »

mouse_ wrote: post #36
Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just made me realise something. For 10 years , every month I'd received an SMS saying: > Your latest bill $-0.02 on [... blah blah...] From a telco provider I no longer use. Turns out they finally stopped messaging me in November last year. I wonder if they worked it out or whether their system gives up after 10 years. Hopefully you don't have to wait that long!

I wonder if there's a way we could estimate the global power consumption for digital junk mail in units of tons of coal

~ 4-5 million tons of coal (33 TWh in 2009)

- Equals ~1/3rd of Bitcoin's energy consumption (~115 TWh per year, 2022) [6]

- A pile of 8 million tons of coal is ~1/2km (~1/3 mile) in diameter and 167m (549ft) high [3]

- Poland uses 10 million tons of coal a year to heat households (2017) [4]

- Annual world coal production 7,741.6 million t (2020) [5]

33bn kWh [0] = 4.056.268 TCE (Ton Of Coal Equivalent) [1]

33bn kWh / 6.7 kWh/kg [2] / 1.000 kg/t = 4.925.373 t

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/apr/15/spam-mcaf...

[1] https://www.justintools.com/unit-conversion/energy.php?k1=te...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal

[3] https://www.sightline.org/2013/07/03/what-8-million-tons-of-...

[4] https://www.dw.com/en/coal-rich-poland-faces-winter-of-energ... -> https://www.dw.com/en/can-poland-end-its-toxic-relationship-...

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_coal_prod...

[6] https://www.statista.com/statistics/881472/worldwide-bitcoin...

Re: Vodafone unveils prototype 5G network built on a Raspberry Pi computer

#87

Post by monocasa »

_joel wrote: post #83
monocasa wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, except once you have a PCIe daughter card it's no longer an SBC; you have at least two boards right there.

No but it is before you add one, so that's the best place to start.

Not necessarily. If this is based on a CM4 (almost certainly), then there's no SBC at all since the CM4 is a SoM.

Re: Vodafone unveils prototype 5G network built on a Raspberry Pi computer

#88

Post by TacticalCoder »

vegabook wrote: post #70
andrewstuart wrote: post #35

This is the reason why you can't get a Raspberry Pi computer. Eben Upton, (Raspberry Pi Founder) sold out his his base. When the chip shortage hit, Upton made the decision to prioritise supply to industrial buyers over retail/hobbyists/education. His rationale was that companies that had bills to pay and salaries to pay should get priority because people's livelihoods depended on getting those Raspberry Pi's. Sounds…

I've literally just bought a 2 year old 10nm Tiger Lake Intel i5 16GB, 512GB_ssd, Lenovo Slim 7i notebook, on Ebay, for 400 USD. Thanks to M1/2 these devices are going for cheap: 500 dollars in general for like-new (mine had a few scratches), and they perform 5x better (at least) than an RPi 4, have at least 2x the RAM, have an actual SSD, keyboard, monitor, backup battery, power supply. Mine even does AVX512. The SB…

That's not the same thing at all. 400 USD is, well, way more expensive than a Pi.

Then there's the room it takes / the formfactor. I've got three Pi stacked on my desk (and 2 out of the 3 are powered at nearly all times). I've got one in my arcade cab, with a Pi2JAMMA adapter. The Notebook wouldn't fit or would look clunky. Also, well, how do you put a hat on a Notebook? How do I put it in my cab and have the JAMMA connector power it?

You're comparing apples and oranges (not that your notebook doesn't look good).

I'm not saying what they're doing is fine but people looking for a Pi aren't looking notebook.

Re: Vodafone unveils prototype 5G network built on a Raspberry Pi computer

#89

Post by TacticalCoder »

bsder wrote: post #81
andrewstuart wrote: post #35

This is the reason why you can't get a Raspberry Pi computer. Eben Upton, (Raspberry Pi Founder) sold out his his base. When the chip shortage hit, Upton made the decision to prioritise supply to industrial buyers over retail/hobbyists/education. His rationale was that companies that had bills to pay and salaries to pay should get priority because people's livelihoods depended on getting those Raspberry Pi's. Sounds…

You can bitch about RPIs or you can go support something else . Lots (9000+) of Beaglebone Blacks over here -> https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/BeagleBoard-by-Seeed-St... TI documentation is stellar (except the graphics--which nobody documents) unlike the RPi or any of it's clones. The chips are all available at volumes less than millions. You don't have to sign NDAs in order to get stuff. The Linux is standard D…

> You can bitch about RPIs or you can go support something else.

I will and thanks for your comment... I'm pretty much Debian and Debian derivatives only so you convinced me.

I've got eight Pi I think. I started with the "Model 1" (which wasn't called that back then), on which I was running RasPBX (Raspbian with FreePBX+Asterisk) hooked to a SIP trunk to power four Cisco VoIP phone at my wife's little SME. Worked flawlessly for years. My best one I'd say is in the vintage arcade cab, with a Pi2JAMMA hat bigger than the Pi (!). I've got three towered on my desk, two of them operational 24/7.

So early adopter and user as it gets, not the kind to let the Pi not powered up... But I think this headline and the troubles getting one convinced me and I'm done with that brand.

I'll order BeagleBoards now and run Debian on them.

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