My name is Nils Fürste and I’m a telecom engineer working at the intersection of testing, infrastructure, and security. Most of my work revolves around designing and deploying end-to-end testing systems for mobile networks, from the physical infrastructure up to orchestration and automation.

My path into telecom started during my studies in IT Security at Ruhr University Bochum, where I spent two years working in telecom security research with David Rupprecht. That experience gave me my first exposure to how mobile networks operate under the hood, and how they can be broken. It also forced me to dive deep into the 3GPP TS specifications and the protocols that understand how the the radio link works, something that still helps me today whenever I need to understand or troubleshoot complex systems.

When I joined Software Radio Systems (SRS), I began working with end-to-end testing frameworks that supported CI/CD pipelines for the development of the srsRAN eNB and, later, the srsRAN CU/DU. This gave me a comprehensive view of all the components involved in private network deployments, while also strengthening my skills in system administration as I managed the whole lab infrastructure at SRS. Over time, my work grew from extending setups for 2G and 4G into ORAN-based 5G systems. Along the way, I learned how to provision servers, tune real-time environments, build PTP infrastructure, and bring Kubernetes into our workflows. More recently, I’ve worked with clients ranging from universities to government organizations, integrating our software with their systems to build complete RAN deployments. These projects taught me how to automate deployments, design environments that are both reliable and adaptable, and recognize what truly matters when building private networks in practice.

This blog is where I bring those experiences together. Some posts will be tutorials, practical guides to setting up and tuning parts of a RAN or building automated test frameworks. Others will be stories from the lab: what went wrong, what worked, and what I learned the hard way. And every so often, I’ll write about telecom security, my original passion, and how it connects with the systems I work on today.

If you’re interested in building, testing, and securing telecom systems, you’re in the right place.