Folks,

Excuse the cross-post, but this is kinda big news.

Several of us have been running the OpenBridge branch of HBlink for a couple of weeks and it is close to being merged into the main branch.

OpenBridge is a way to, essentially, trunk many call streams at the same time between HBlink, Brandmeister, DMR+ and DMR-MARC. Brandmeister has indicated willingness to provide OpenBridge connections to network operators using HBlink – in fact, it was the BM team who suggested we add support for it and they would happily allow those connections (they don’t like us using HBP connections for downstream network traffic). I do not yet know whether DMR+ or DMR-MARC will be willing to provide the same, but the technical capabilities are now available for an independent network operator to take “trunk” type feeds from all of the major networks, without masquerading as repeaters.

Anyone looking to get upstream feeds OpenBridge feeds from the “big networks” must work those arrangements out with those network operators, and I strongly discourage chaining OB to OB to OB to avoid those upstream connections. The best way to use OB is between your independent network and a direct connection to one of the International networks, and direct connections between your network and other regional operators. Passing national/international network traffic between multiple independent regional networks is likely to cause performance problems sooner or later.

0x49 DE N0MJS

Cort Buffington
785-865-7206