WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission is beginning an inquiry into how software-defined radios may change the world.
“You know that software-defined radios have the potential to bring science fiction to life,” said FCC Commissioner Susan Ness.
In a software-defined radio, functions that were formerly carried out solely in hardware, such as the generation of the transmitted signal and tuning and detection of the received radio signal, are performed by software that controls high-speed signal processors.
SDR provides an efficient and comparatively inexpensive mechanism for designing and implementing multimode, multiband and multifunctional wireless devices that can be enhanced using software upgrades, thus addressing many of the most challenging issues confronting the wireless industry, said the SDR Forum.
SDR is seen by FCC Chairman William Kennard “as another critical step in the development of a more fluid spectrum market.”
Kennard floated the idea of secondary markets for spectrum at the recent CTIA Wireless 2000 show. He reiterated on Friday that “one way to head off a spectrum drought is to make sure that the spectrum that we have is always in use.”
While the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association said it welcomes the FCC’s action, “this inquiry should not be seen as a replacement for the FCC’s primary mission to effectively manage spectrum,” said CTIA spokesman Jeffrey Nelson.
The SDR Forum, an industry group of more than 70 entities, praised the decision. “The FCC has identified the key regulatory issues, and has acted in a timely way to remove regulatory barriers to the wider commercial adoption of SDR. The SDR Forum anticipates that regulatory agencies around the world will follow the FCC’s lead so as to permit SDR benefits to be offered to wireless consumers everywhere,” said John D. Ralston, vice chairman of the SDR Forum and vice president for IP, standards and regulatory activities at Silicon Valley-based Morphics Technology, Inc.
The initial applications of SDR technology are not expected to require major changes in FCC rules, said Scott Blake Harris, SDR outside counsel.
“The initiatives undertaken by the FCC on SDR can directly flow into international bodies such as the [International Telecommunications Union-Radio Sector]. We hope this interchange of views can lead to a common global regulatory foundation so that the benefits of SDR technology may be realized in the nearer term,” said SDR Forum Chairman Stephen M. Blust.
CTIA, which has been fighting the FCC to lift the caps that limit the amount of spectrum a carrier can control to 45 megahertz in urban areas and 55 megahertz in rural areas, said the promise of SDR was “limited” unless the caps were removed. “The critical first step is the removal of the commercial mobile radio services spectrum cap, which creates artificial shortages today and limits the promise of SDR tomorrow,” Nelson said.
