Introduction
Before starting the next phase and beginning using our new community tool, it is important to highlight some key points.
It doesn’t matter if you’re already an experienced user if you’ve tried using it and failed, or even if you’ve never tried using it. It is very important that you read all the instructions below, otherwise, you will not be able to enjoy everything you could. Don’t worry; this will be brief.
Where are we today?
After more than 20 years (telecomHall started in 1999) we can all agree that “we have come a long way”.
We are a Community
The main motivation for creating telecomHall was always to create a place (Hall) for Telecommunications professionals (telecom). That’s the origin of the name: telecomHall.
From the beginning, the idea was to provide a single place, with all the resources (training, support, tools, etc.) that a professional needed to carry out their work “in the best possible way”. And everything would be totally FREE.
And we got it. We are almost 50,000 professionals among groups and an extraordinary Web Forum – telecomHall.net.
The number of web forum users grows every day, bringing together more and more people with the same goal: to learn and grow in Telecommunications (and other areas)!
Jobs, Training, and More
Like the huge community we have, the possibilities are many, and we have several goals.
For example, we are always looking to relocate professionals in our community (or even relocate those who are currently unhappy).
Regarding training, we also have a strong goal to provide at least the basic knowledge of any area that the members of the community want. We are actively looking for new partners, who understand the model of our community, and every day we have more options for growth.
We have a Tool
We can definitely say that our community has the best free/open-source tool for CM/PM/FM/Geo Management of 2G/3G/4G/5G/Iot Networks in the world, BODA!
It’s BODA, a powerful Multivendor, and Multi Technologies tool.
When compared to other similar commercial tools, the difference is huge: while you have to pay millions a year to have a commercial tool, Boda is free! And in addition, it allows you to use/adapt the code to your needs.
For a couple of reasons that we will discuss later, the development of Boda was stopped. Even so, the latest stable version is still amazing, being used by over 20,000 people worldwide!
We always learn
Throughout our journey, we had a number of learning experiences. We don’t call them "errors’, although technically they can be called that way. Below are some of them
Trying to serve everyone at the same time
Perhaps the biggest problem in the past was trying to please everyone, without exception.
We tried to provide instantaneous/real-time “support” (via WhatsApp) but we ended up with all the members’ requirements “put in a queue”.
The problem is that everyone has their own very specific requirements. Many members demand a lot of customization that are very specific to them. As a result that didn’t work.
Lack of participation
Another big problem that led to temporarily freezing development was the lack of participation in the area of helping with corrections/improvements in the code and giving feedback.
Members who left the project
A number of people that were participating left the project. Others went quiet as soon as they got what they needed. Some others hand change of jobs or promotions such that the technical work was no longer relevant to them. And then there are those who found the solution to lack what they needed.
Members who joined
As many people left, others came in. We had a big problem of new members getting lost because they could not follow the discussions and evolution of the community and solution. As a result, they would ask the same questions “Is the tool really free?”, “Does it do this, that, etc…”, “Do I need to install a database to use Boda?”
They lacked a clear procedure to follow, and this is a key point that we’re going to improve this time around.
Clear and straightforward information
Although we have a lot of information in the form of articles in the forum, there is a lack of a clear “route” to follow on how to access the documentation and in which order. Following this re-introduction article, we are going to create an index for all this information to bring order to the documentation.
We hope this helps, but we count on your participation, as a member of the community by commenting whenever you can.
Lack of time
Another issue is there is a lot of information and technology on the whole is changing very fast. There isn’t enough time to read all the blogs or watch all the videos. You either have to be selective in what you read and watch. Some people have resorted to watch videos in fast forward mode at 1.5x, 2x speed. The consequence is the information delivered is outdated and not properly done. Even worse, there is no more learning
We understand that lack of time is a problem that affects everyone. And we are putting this into consideration as we start this new phase.
We learned a little from the past. Unfortunately (or fortunately), we will continue to learn from the present/future (errors). We can not avoid that.
But let’s strive to “make fewer mistakes”, and always be able to evolve . And it goes without saying again that we count on your participation in the Community, right?
What do we currently have?
Straight to the point:
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The World’s Largest Telecommunications Technical Discussion Community
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The best open-source telecommunication tools in the world
Where do we want to go?
This question still doesn’t have an answer. Because, in fact, we will never stop. We will always keep looking to improve every day, always listening to what the community has to say.
But, considering the points we have already stated, we can add:
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Largest World Community: Increase the scope of discussions, particularly on domains other than the RAN. Discussions exist in almost every other domain (such as Telco Cloud) but wireless discussions are still predominant.
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The best tool: Evolve the tools; and that’s why we started this next chapter. Let’s talk more later.
And of course, having the biggest Community, and the best tools, it’s natural and (expected) that soon it will have, for example, the best place to get placements (Jobs) and also to be the reference community when it comes to Science and Technology.
Yes, because although the name is telecomHall (due to its origin), we no longer have “only” telecommunications discussions.
In fact, as has been discussed in our community that the profile of the Telecommunications Professional has already changed, and continues to change.
Skills like Programming and Computer Networks, Automation and much more are being brought along with 5G.
Fortunately, for all that the future holds, you are not alone!
Whenever you need it, all of us in the telecomHall Community will be here to help and evolve together!
Hunter CE (Community Edition)
Finally, let’s return to the main subject of this article, the first in a long series, and the main reason for everything in this new phase.
We will talk in more detail in the next tutorial, dedicated exclusively to the description of the Hunter CE Solution (Community Edition).
But in simple words here, we can consider it as an “evolution” of Boda. Mainly from Boda Lite. All future plans that were pending for Boda Lite continue.
But now we’ve put in a bigger part of community involvement.
We’re no longer looking for collaborators on the code – we’re just sharing everything we’ve already done ourselves. (Note: of course, if you have programming skills, and would like to help, you are more than welcome!).
This time we will share – for the Community members – all the links necessary to use Hunter in their daily work. And along with each link, a tutorial with a guide, step by step.
We will share our vision of how such a tool works. And believe me: you will be surprised!
Conclusion
After almost being discontinued, for the reasons explained above, and mainly due to the lack of collaboration in the open source solution format, Boda returns to activity.
Now in the form of a community tool, it remains open source, free.
From now on, Boda will be called Hunter, and it is much more comprehensive (not just RAN in its scope). And it brings a new methodology, bringing together the best practices that all the best telecom professionals have added to the tool.
It has a lot of focus on automation with Python, although other languages (VBA, R, etc.) are equally valid to be used in a complementary way.
Python is also used to integrate with QGIS (because Hunter’s GEO part use it).
As you may be noticing, we are not using the verb in the future tense, but in the present tense. This is because, yes – Hunter is already widely used by hundreds of professionals who have adapted and improved what Boda had to offer.
We’re just putting all these improvements together into one project – and making it accessible to all interested community members.
But don’t worry: we know it’s really a lot. However, rest assured, you will be able to follow in a very simplified way how you can be part of all this transformation.
For now, just make sure you have a valid user (who can log in) in the Community. If you don’t have a user yet, you can access our tutorial here: How to create a username in telecomHall
That’s it for today. Stay tuned for our upcoming tutorials and you’ll see how you can use Hunter to help you with many tasks in your everyday life!