If anyone is wondering what the parent poster is talking about — the abbreviation PHICH (which isn't mentioned in the referenced project, but is just an example of a weird mobile-network acronym) expands to "Physical channel HybridARQ Indicator Channel"; and then the embedded "ARQ" inside it, purportedly expands to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_repeat_request .

Some might claim that the "Q" in "ARQ" is actually "query"; and that people who choose to expand the "Q" as "request" just have a dim view of the average person's vocabulary level.

Personally, though, I'd argue that, if you think about it, the "Q" is probably not "request" or "query", but rather just another appearance of the conventional opaque "Q" that appears in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_code.

It uses srsRAN which supports SoapySDR which is vendor agnostic.

this should work with limesdr as well.

for something cheaper, try antsdr or adalm-pluto: https://github.com/srsran/zynq_timestamping

lots of good notes here: https://www.quantulum.co.uk/blog/private-lte-with-analog-ada...

Seems like if you had a PC already, you could get away with a bladeRF 2.0 micro xA5 for $670, but this can sniff downlink only.

Yes, there is cheaper hardware like the Adalm Pluto with enough bandwidth and dynamic range, but it is not supported by the looks of things.

For those interested in a more accessible LTE meta-data decoder check out https://github.com/JiaoXianjun/LTE-Cell-Scanner which can work with even cheap rtl-sdr dongles (for some things). It is a fork of an older https://github.com/Evrytania/LTE-Cell-Scanner

True? How are phone modems inexpensive?

What does it require?