Vodafone builds home 5G network using Raspberry Pi

Vodafone has used a Raspberry Pi mini PC to build a device that individuals and businesses could use as an “affordable, portable and private” 5G network.

It said the prototype (pictured) works as a mobile private network (MPN) for small and medium-sized businesses, and would boost household coverage for consumers by “providing an additional fast broadband link at times when many residents are online simultaneously”.

Currently, MPNS are used mostly by large businesses that need to connect many different types of devices, such as manufacturing robots and self-driving vehicles in factories. Vodafone aims to make them cheaper so more smaller firms can start using them.

It claims the unnamed device is “no bigger than a home Wi-fi router”, allowing users to set up their own private networks in public places such as coffee shops, or in a “remote location like a basement”.

The device transmits 5G through four antennas, and combines a “super powerful” Raspberry Pi 4 with a software-defined radio (SDR) circuit board made by Guildford firm Lime Microsystems. Vodafone says this board can turn any computing platform into a miniature 5G base station.

Santiago Tenorio, Vodafone’s Director of

Network Architecture, said: “We looked at what Raspberry Pi did for computing, in terms of making it more accessible to people of all ages, and we wanted to do the same with 5G.”

The company didn’t say how much the network might cost, but said it would be about the price of a Wi-fi router.

Read more on Vodafone’s site: www.snipca.com/45171.