In 2016, the Networks and Communications group have succeeded to launch the Collaborative Radio Cloud (CRC), the first wireless testbed in Egypt and the Middle East, funded by the National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA).

In 2017, NTRA funded the CRC testbed for a second phase to build a number of remotely accessible testbeds distributed among number of Egyptian universities.

The implementation of the second phase aims to allow 24/7 remote access to the available resources at the Egyptian universities for the research and teaching purposes and to reduce the cost of purchasing new equipment which is available at other universities.

Furthermore, these different testbeds are federated with a unified architecture to allow new universities/sites to integrate, in the future. The currently involved universities are:

• Alexandria University (USRPs Testbed)
• Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (EJUST) (USRPs Testbed)
• Cairo University (FPGA Testbed)
• Assiut University (IoT Testbed)

Lab equipment  

• Servers (Poweredge R730 HDD600)
• KVM (B070-008-19)
• Ethernet Switch
• Tiny Desktops
• SDR kits (USRP B210)
• SDR kits (2×2 SDR starter kit)
• SDR kits (RTL-SDR R820T RTL2832U)
• Antenna (VERT2450 Antenna)