PhantomNet is a mobility testbed, providing researchers with a set of hardware and software resources that they can use to develop, debug, and evaluate their mobility designs. Resources available in PhantomNet include EPC/EPS software (OpenEPC), hardware access points (ip.access enodeb), PC nodes with mobile radios (HUAWEI cellular modems), and a large set of commodity bare metal nodes, virtual nodes and other resouces inherited from the main Emulab site. In addition to raw resources, PhantomNet provides configuration directives and scripts to assist researchers in setting up their mobility experiments. Users specify their experiment via Emulab NS file templates augmented with PhantomNet-specific functionality. In complement to these template NS files, PhantomNet does the work of configuring the EPC software components to operate within the underlying Emulab environment.

The following factors drive the development of the PhantomNet testbed:

• Exploration of traditional (EPC/3GPP) mobility platforms and variations therein
• A toolkit for expressing mobility experiments / setups.
• Access to and configuration assistance for real wireless hardware and mobile user equipment.
• Flexibility to go "under the hood" and modify/augment traditional mobility componts, or replace them altogether.

Some helpful links:

• PhantomNet Wiki
• OpenEPC Tutorial (registration/approval required)

The PhantomNet facility is built on top of Emulab and is run by the Flux Group, part of the School of Computing at the University of Utah.