And here is a guy who did this the HARD way (perhaps expensive in money, but certainly in time). He used custom hardware AND custom firmware (to replace a dead battery with a power supply):
https://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/a..._power_supply/
Using the circuit board in the battery, there is no need for custom firmware, and any power source in the right voltage range (with enough current for 3G power "spikes") should work in place of the LiPo battery that I used.