Any suggestions on where to start to use this as a LTE uplink that reads from an SD card and uploads images? I'd like to replace my expensive faulty game camera subscription.
In case you aren't familiar with the details of consumer RF standards (including IEEE 802.11, but especially LTE or anything cellular related) or don't have some prior RF knowledge: To put it mildly, LTE is not an easy standard to implement on an SDR, especially if it's your contact with SDRs. Even GSM is nowhere near a simple stack.
If you want to get a feeling for what kind of cellular projects are possible using SDRs from a hobbyist/free software perspective, have a look at the Osmocom (Open Source Mobile Communications) projects [1] as well as Harald Welte's blog [2] (one of the main Osmocom contributors). The Osmocom projects are focused on the carrier side of LTE/GSM networks AFAIK.
Another warning: While cellular technology involves lots of networks, it is completely different from the standards and terminology used in the Internet. For example, citing the description for OsmoHNBGW:
"An Open Source implementation of a HNB-GW (HomeNodeB-Gateway), implementing the Iuh, IuCS and IuPS interfaces. It aggregates the Iuh links from femtocells (hNodeBs) and presents them as regular IuCS and IuPS towards MSC and SGSN (such as OsmoMSC and OsmoSGSN). It uses M3UA as signaling transport."
The description totally makes sense to an insider, but if you only dabbled with TCP/IP, routers and switches so far, be prepared for learning a whole new world of networking terms.
If you are familiar with RF/cellular engineering and/or if you're trying to do this on a corporate budget then you probably already know what I mentioned above, and your project can certainly be realized for $$$.
If you're looking for a one-off DIY solution then you could use something like a u-blox SARA-R4 [3] modem (for NB-IoT/low bandwidth). Similar boards with higher bandwidth also exist.
> If you want to get a feeling for what kind of cellular projects are possible using SDRs from a hobbyist/free software perspective, have a look at the Osmocom (Open Source Mobile Communications) projects
Just want to say these guys are absolutely awesome. I got a great hobbyist discount on some hardware from them for a project I’ve admittedly fallen behind on.
My only complaint was lack of documentation, but the source code of their stuff has been reasonable enough for me to read and get stuff working.
In case you aren't familiar with the details of consumer RF standards (including IEEE 802.11, but especially LTE or anything cellular related) or don't have some prior RF knowledge: To put it mildly, LTE is not an easy standard to implement on an SDR, especially if it's your contact with SDRs. Even GSM is nowhere near a simple stack.
If you want to get a feeling for what kind of cellular projects are possible using SDRs from a hobbyist/free software perspective, have a look at the Osmocom (Open Source Mobile Communications) projects [1] as well as Harald Welte's blog [2] (one of the main Osmocom contributors). The Osmocom projects are focused on the carrier side of LTE/GSM networks AFAIK.
Another warning: While cellular technology involves lots of networks, it is completely different from the standards and terminology used in the Internet. For example, citing the description for OsmoHNBGW: "An Open Source implementation of a HNB-GW (HomeNodeB-Gateway), implementing the Iuh, IuCS and IuPS interfaces. It aggregates the Iuh links from femtocells (hNodeBs) and presents them as regular IuCS and IuPS towards MSC and SGSN (such as OsmoMSC and OsmoSGSN). It uses M3UA as signaling transport." The description totally makes sense to an insider, but if you only dabbled with TCP/IP, routers and switches so far, be prepared for learning a whole new world of networking terms.
If you are familiar with RF/cellular engineering and/or if you're trying to do this on a corporate budget then you probably already know what I mentioned above, and your project can certainly be realized for $$$.
If you're looking for a one-off DIY solution then you could use something like a u-blox SARA-R4 [3] modem (for NB-IoT/low bandwidth). Similar boards with higher bandwidth also exist.
[1] https://osmocom.org/projects
[2] https://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/
[3] https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14997