The OpenBTS Chronicles. The OpenBTS Project. Chris Paget's Blog. US-based BTC miners, read this!
I just got back from doing my taxes for 2013, and have discovered something awesome about the US tax system. Before I say anything else, let me be clear: I am not an accountant, lawyer, doctor, or anyone else who can give you advice about taxes. I’m just repeating (to the best of my knowledge) my understanding of what worked for me, and you should consult a properly-licensed accountant abut anything here that you think you could use. OK, now that’s out of the way, here’s the big thing: If you mine for Bitcoins you can depreciate your hardware. OpenBTS on Droid. To repeat what I said on Twitter, it’s somewhat pointless but a neat hack nonetheless – running a GSM base station from a CDMA handset.
With minimal work it’s possible to get gnuradio and OpenBTS working on the ARMEL architecture used on the Droid, allowing my Droid to act as a base station to which handsets can connect; the Droid then connects calls using an on-board Asterisk server and routes them to the PSTN via SIP over Verizon’s 3G network. The quick version: I can provide voice and SMS connectivity to local GSM handsets using nothing but a Droid and a USRP.
A quick log of what you’ll need to replicate this. This is from memory so I may have missed something; fortunately there’s an easier way that I’ll come back to. - Root the Droid and install Sholes Mod. - Mount your SD card in a desktop machine and create an EXT3 partition.