GSM Gateway with pi

eeepaulo

Im thinking of setting up a GSM gateway using a raspberry pi, I want to use it for a relative who visits the uk.

If i've understood what i've read i can put their sim card into a dongle connected to the pi with asterisk installed and forward the calls (using voiop) to an english mobile number, saving them paying roaming costs and still allowing them to recieve calls to their irish mobile number.

Is that correct?

The most common dongle looks like the huwaei e1550 it seems to be a few years old and only on ebay, about €30 delivered. There is a list here any feedback on dongles would be appreciated.

thanks

Mr. G

I've set this up recently for someone else here using a Raspberry Pi and it seems to be going ok. I used a Huawei E173 and recorded it with a screen recorder and hope to post videos on it someday..

Here's some advice:
- Make sure the dongle is unlocked
- Make sure it's voice enabled
- Make sure any PIN on the SIM card is disabled or it might lock it
- You may need a USB hub so do your research to make sure it will work with the Pi.

I'll try and post with more advice later this week. It took a bit of time to get it going as I've never done it before, for example the dongle wasn't voice enabled. It's a learning curve but surprisingly the call quality is excellent.

I tried it with an E1550 and it just didn't work. Then tried it with a Meteor E173 and that was fine. There's a number of the E173 modems online that can be gotten cheaply.

Mr. G

eeepaulo wrote: »

Im thinking of setting up a GSM gateway using a raspberry pi, I want to use it for a relative who visits the uk.

If i've understood what i've read i can put their sim card into a dongle connected to the pi with asterisk installed and forward the calls (using voiop) to an english mobile number, saving them paying roaming costs and still allowing them to recieve calls to their irish mobile number.

Is that correct?

The most common dongle looks like the huwaei e1550 it seems to be a few years old and only on ebay, about €30 delivered. There is a list here any feedback on dongles would be appreciated.

thanks

You will pay for any diversion fees but it will work fine.

You can even forward any SMS messages to another number or email (emails wouldn't work for me even though it would successfully send test emails).

go4it

install raspbx image, than do the email setup with dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config , than install chan dongle with install-dongle.
Natively the system forwards the incoming sms to another number or email of your choice.
You can send sms from command line as well.
Just check raspberry-asterisk.org

eeepaulo

go4it wrote: »

install raspbx image, than do the email setup with dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config , than install chan dongle with install-dongle.
Natively the system forwards the incoming sms to another number or email of your choice.
You can send sms from command line as well.
Just check raspberry-asterisk.org

Thanks for the info.

That site is excellent. Saw this discussion in the forum

http://sourceforge.net/p/raspbx/discussion/general/thread/22c4337a/?limit=25#bdee

I got a pi 2 and am just waiting for them to iron out any problems, i would not know if it was a pi2 issue or me doing it wrong.

go4it

I use the raspb pi B board with raspbx ( not B+ or pi2). dongles compatible are on wiki.e1550.mobi ( I've used 2 Vodafone unlocked dongles from k series -k3520)
From other discussion with a friend , his using the same B board , not overclocked , for 8 dongles in powered hubs, but he noticed the board runs ok for 5 concurrent calls just fine, G711u codec, no transcoding done.
At more than 5 calls he noticed hiccups on the system.

Probably the P2 will be able to push more calls, and won't have power issues for 1-2 dongles attached straight to the board

eeepaulo

go4it wrote: »

I use the raspb pi B board with raspbx ( not B+ or pi2). dongles compatible are on wiki.e1550.mobi ( I've used 2 Vodafone unlocked dongles from k series -k3520)
From other discussion with a friend , his using the same B board , not overclocked , for 8 dongles in powered hubs, but he noticed the board runs ok for 5 concurrent calls just fine, G711u codec, no transcoding done.
At more than 5 calls he noticed hiccups on the system.

Probably the P2 will be able to push more calls, and won't have power issues for 1-2 dongles attached straight to the board

I gave an older pi (i think it was a b, bought it when they first came out, after a 3-4 month wait, im fairly sure it had extra ram to the very first one) to my father as a media centre with open elec on it, i will swap when i see him next.. i think a media centre has more reason to have the extra power than an occasional gateway.

I bought an unlocked e173 dongle already on mr gs suggestion. Do you think one dongle will run without a powered hub on the pi B? I have one, its just the number of things plugged into the mains near the router is getting stupid, one less plug is always good.

Mr. G

eeepaulo wrote: »

I gave an older pi (i think it was a b, bought it when they first came out, after a 3-4 month wait, im fairly sure it had extra ram to the very first one) to my father as a media centre with open elec on it, i will swap when i see him next.. i think a media centre has more reason to have the extra power than an occasional gateway.

I bought an unlocked e173 dongle already on mr gs suggestion. Do you think one dongle will run without a powered hub on the pi B? I have one, its just the number of things plugged into the mains near the router is getting stupid, one less plug is always good.

Try it. I had it connected directly without a hub and it works fine. But it had gone into several reboot cycles before this but that may have been for another reason.

go4it

eeepaulo wrote: »

... Do you think one dongle will run without a powered hub on the pi B?....

From the board specs should be fine with one dongle attached to the board.
But then again, B board is known to have issues with power over usb ports, so worst that could happen is the dongle to lose connection when a call comes in.

Do a test and keep the command line open, and watch it when you receive/make calls from the dongle. If unavailable you'll see messages like : disconnected simlynks, etc

Mr. G

A handy way specifically in SSH is to run

asterisk -r

and then

dongle show devices

a few times until it connects and watch it to make sure it doesn't lose power and that it works as required.