A Look At Software Radios: Are They Fact Or Fiction?

A software radio could offer more flexibility by realizing multimode and multiband radio. It could present "on-the-fly" specification change and additional functions and/or services. It also could offer autonomous selection of air-interface standards according to environments (home, office, outdoor, vehicle) and user needs (voice, data, audio).

The driver for the development of software-radio base stations is likely to be the introduction of third-generation systems. But, huge investments are needed for first- and second-generation wireless systems. These make it unattractive—at least for the present time—for operators to consider a software-radio network deployment in the near future.

We can expect, then, that world- wide base-station and handset manufacturers see the software radio as a remote opportunity (a technological vision) and will focus on a commercially viable version of it. This pragmatic approach results in the digital programmable radio, which bridges the gap between second- and third- generation systems. We can also predict the acceleration of the development of software-radio architectures. The market discontinuity, represented by third-generation systems, will create a demand in the same way GSM did for real-time DSP in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

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