SDR easing its way into the mainstream

Software-defined radio has seemingly lingered on the horizon for half a decade without much of an effect on the commercial wireless industry, but that may soon change as wireless vendors are making SDR gear ready for primetime.

In the past year, companies such as AirNet Communications have been selling their SDR base stations to international operators and have even hinted at their gear operating in the networks of major U.S. carriers. In November, Vanu received the first FCC certification for an SDR base station, not a required step to bringing its kit to market but certainly a significant one considering the FCC's support for the new technology.

Still, enthusiasm for SDR hasn't reached a groundswell. No major carrier has announced plans to incorporate software base stations into their networks, and though the major infrastructure vendors are all believed to be developing software-upgradeable equivalents of their current generation access technology, so far they've been rather quiet about any forthcoming product lines.

The situation may soon change, however, as the growing consolidation trend forces carriers to integrate disparate network technologies. Instead of creating a dedicated base station for every network technology, SDR dictates to a generic base station that digitally processes any signal it receives. Software modules loaded into the base station do the actual waveform processing. Any time a carrier wants to add a new access technology, it just loads up the appropriate module. With complicated mergers like that of Sprint and Nextel looming, the advantages of developing a universal base station are obvious, said Allan Margulies, chief operating officer for the SDR Forum.

“The easiest thing would be to have one standard that everyone adopts and everyone uses,” Margulies said. “Well, that's just not going to happen.”

According to Margulies, the SDR Forum is going beyond incorporating multiple technologies to multiple frequencies by merging its software technology in the base station with intelligent antenna and wideband front-end technologies in the radio frequency carrier. Eventually, it won't matter if a signal is GSM or CDMA or running over cellular, PCS or DCS frequencies. Basically, the idea of a purpose-built access infrastructure will cease to exist.

$21.2 billion

Total market opportunity for SDR base stations

$10.2 billion

Total market opportunity for SDR handsets

Source: Pioneer Consulting