"A technology that could transform wireless communications got a boost on Friday when the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced its first approval of a software-defined radio. The Vanu Software Radio GSM Base Station from Vanu can support multiple cellular technologies and frequencies at the same time and can be modified in the future without any hardware changes. Traditional radios are hardware components built for a particular frequency range, modulation type and output power. Software-defined radios (SDRs) consist of a flexible radio controlled by software running on a computer or device. The concept goes beyond cellular base stations to other types of radios, such as handheld devices that can switch from one network to another to suit a particular application or environment."According to the article, Vanu is going after small rural cell operators first, as their technology will allow these companies to sign roaming agreements with multiple network providers. The fact that the Vanu base stations use off-the-shelf servers and the Linux operating system means that the cost of providing multiple network connectivity will eventually plummet. Of course, the bit about the handheld devices is what grabbed my eye. :mrgreen: How do you think this will affect the future of wireless PDA-based communication?
First Software-Defined Radio Approved by FCC
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