YateBTS and 3G dongle

[kakao]

Hi, I was working with OpenBTS some time ago and I am going to give YateBTS a go now.
I come from Asterisk, Gnuradio and OpenBTS world and I would appreciate if someone could explain a few things to me.
The most important- Can YateBTS connect to the external world via 3G dongle ? Incomming and outgoing phone calls the same way as OpenBTS with Asterisk?
I don't know much about Yate, but my understanding is that it replaces Asterisk, right? So is it possible to get YateBTS to work with Freeswitch or Asterisk ?
Will YateBTS work on Linux Mint 17 64bit ? (I need 3G dongle support also)

[paulc]

You can use pretty much any form of IP connectivity to reach out as long as it provides reasonable quality and latency and VoIP is not blocked. If the mobile provider you get 3G from blocks VoIP you need to use some form of VPN to hide the traffic. As a minimum you may use TLS as SIP transport and hope the RTP doesn't get blocked.

For the 3G dongle to work properly you need to install it in a fixed position that gets a good signal. Depending on coverage you may need a dongle with an external antenna. take a look at our commercial SatSite product http://www.yatebts.com/sat_site.php which can also do calls over 3G (but unlike the NIB it registers subscribers in their home network HLR).

Since Yate (of which YateBTS is a module) is a complete softswitch you can just connect it to a VoIP provider for calls. You can set up routing rules for outbound and inbound traffic. See the http://wiki.yatebts.com/index.php/Network_in_a_Box and http://docs.yate.ro/wiki/Main_Page documentation.

YateBTS can be compiled on pretty much any Linux distro, the main requirement being support for building and / or installing the bladeRF library.

[kakao]

Thanks for the answers.
So if YateBTS is a module for Yate, it will not work with any other software like Asterisk?
About the 3G dongle. I understand that I need a network coverage. What I am looking for is a fully portable solution.
So I was thinking about a USB 3G dongle (ie Huawei E173, https://code.google.com/p/asterisk-chan-dongle/) that plugs into my laptop that runs YateBTS. Are the necessary drivers and modules for Yate (YateBTS) to run this configuration?