So we’ve got a functional network, but let’s dive deeper into what we can do to connect it with other networks and how things work in “the real world”.

Media Handling – OsmoMGW

The Audio/Voice (media stream) data on a call between subscribers does not go directly between the subscribers and instead needs to be proxed relayed. The reason for this is because there’s no direct link from one BTS to another BTS (even if they are served by the same BSC) and as our subscribers can move from cell to cell while on a call – which may mean moving from one BSC to another depending on where they’re heading – we need to have a single point for the audio to remain.

To handle this a Media Gateway is used, a single point for call audio to be “anchored” – meaning regardless of which BTS/BSC is serving the subscribers on either end of the call, the media will be sent by both parties to a single destination (The Media Gateway), and that destination will send the audio to the other party.

The Media gateway relays / proxies the Media Stream – the RTP packets containing the call audio. OsmoMSC provides the SDP payload containing the codecs and RTP details for the session via MGCP (Media Gateway Control Protocol) to the OsmoMGW which relays the audio.

In terms of running osmo-mgw we installed it earlier,

The only parameter you really need to change is the rtp bind-ip,

On the MGW you can also limit and restrict the codecs supported and also allow or disallow transcoding.

MNCC-SAP & Call Routing

In it’s default mode, the OsmoMSC will look at the destination a call is being sent to, and if the destination is a subscriber on the network (in it’s VLR), will route the call to that subscriber

This on-net only mode is great but it puts our network on an island – cut off from the outside world.

Calls between MSCs, to the PSTN and users everywhere else are not possible in this scenario.

3GPP defined “MNCC-SAP” (Mobile Network Call Control – Service Access Point) a protocol for handling calls to/from destinations outside of the local MSC.

When in MNCC-SAP mode all calls (even on-net calls between subscribers on the same MSC) are routed to the external MNCC-SAP, and left up to it to determine how to route the call.

Configuring Osmo-MSC to talk MNCC

As we just covered by default Osmo-MSC only switches calls internally between subscribers, so we’ll need to turn off this behaviour and isntead reconfigure it to talk MNCC-SAP.

To do this we’ll telnet / VTY into Osmo-MSC;

root@gsm-bts:/etc/osmocom# telnet localhost 4254
Welcome to the OsmoMSC VTY interface
OsmoMSC - Osmocom Circuit-Switched Core Network implementation
OsmoMSC> enable
OsmoMSC# configure terminal
OsmoMSC(config)# msc
OsmoMSC(config-msc)# mncc external /tmp/msc_mncc
OsmoMSC(config-msc)# end
OsmoMSC# cop run st
Configuration saved to /etc/osmocom/osmo-msc.cfg

After making this change we have to restart OsmoMSC;

systemctl restart osmo-msc

Now OsmoMSC will not switch calls locally, but instead when a mobile originated call comes to the MSC, it will signal to the external MNCC via the file sock at /tmp/msc_mncc,

MNCC-SAP sounds great but platform X only speaks SIP

Enter the Osmo-SIP-Connector, which takes the MNCC-SAP messages and converts them to SIP.

From here you can tie the call control functions of the MNC into any SIP software such as Kamailio, FreeSwitch, Asterisk, etc, to handle call routing, number translation, application services like voicemail and conferencing, etc, etc.

On my to-do list is to make a call between one subscriber on GSM and one on VoLTE, I’ll cover that in a subsequent post.

So anywho, let’s get Osmo-SIP-Connector setup,
I’m running it on the same box as the MSC on 10.0.1.201,
My softphone client is running on 10.0.1.252

root@gsm-bts:/etc/osmocom# apt-get install osmo-sip-connector
root@gsm-bts:/etc/osmocom# telnet localhost 4256
Welcome to the OsmoSIPcon VTY interface
OsmoSIPcon> enable
OsmoSIPcon# configure t
OsmoSIPcon(config)# mncc
OsmoSIPcon(config-mncc)# socket-path /tmp/msc_mncc
OsmoSIPcon(config-mncc)# exit
OsmoSIPcon(config)# sip
OsmoSIPcon(config-sip)# local 10.0.1.201 5060
OsmoSIPcon(config-sip)# remote 10.0.1.252 5060
OsmoSIPcon(config-sip)# end
OsmoSIPcon# cop run st
Configuration saved to /etc/osmocom/osmo-sip-connector.cfg

Now any Mobile Originated calls will result in a SIP INVITE being sent to 10.0.1.252 port 5060 (using UDP).

Any SIP INVITES where the request URI is a valid MSISDN @ 10.0.1.201 from 10.0.1.252 will be routed to the correct subscriber for that MSISDN.

A small note – The GSM codec is (unsurprisingly) used as the codec for GSM calls by default.

Some handsets support different codecs, but many off-the-shelf IP phones don’t include GSM support, so you may find you’re required to transcode between codecs if there is no support for the other codecs.

So now we’re able to define our call routing logic in something that speaks SIP and connect calls between multiple MSCs, VoLTE / IMS networks and fixed networks, all based on what we do with the SIP.

Local Call, Local Switch

If two subscribers on the same BSC call each other, the RTP / call audio will route to the MGW where it’s anchored.

This makes sense from a mobility standpoint, but adds load to the MGW and relies on a quality A interface connection, which may be an issue depending on what backhaul options you have.

Local Call, Local Switch is a 3GPP spec to allow the RTP / call audio to act as the RTP proxy instead of the MGW.

There’s a good talk on how this works from OsmoDevCOn 2018 you can find here.