SDR
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AT&T to go live with TerreStar sat phone services this year
We've known that TerreStar Networks and AT&T Mobility were in bed together for quite some time, but evidently the honeymoon phase is finally reaching its logical end. Reportedly, the carrier is gearing up to go live with an extension of service that'll involve satellites and a pinch of luck, giving select customers the ability to roam between its GSM network and TerreStar's satellite network. If all goes to plan (we're not holding our breath, for the record), AT&T will begin to resell satellite service and phones soon after the bird is launched some 22,000 miles above North America on July 1st. Once perched, it'll provide coverage across Canada and the US, including the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. There's no definitive word on pricing, but we're hearing that sat phone service will run around $1 per minute while hybrid handsets will go for around $700 (unsubsidized). Pricey, sure, but how else do you plan to phone home on your next visit to the Pitcairn Islands?
Adaptix new SX-300 and SX-500 Mobile WiMax base stations
They may be jumping the gun, oh, just a little, but Adaptix is launching two new Mobile WiMax base stations, the SX-500 and SX-300, intended for mobile and vehicular uses, respectively. But doing IEEE 802.16e-2005 compliant OFDMA WiMax isn't just all this thing does; these devices will be imminently updatable and upgradeable as they're equipped with software defined radios. For example, already plans are in place to shoehorn in MIMO capabilities and 802.22 Wireless Regional Area data networks over TV bands into these units; in theory they could even be hacked to be WiFi APs or WiMax Bluetooth DUN modems -- but we'll not get ahead of ourselves here. No, as always we'll patiently wait for Adaptix get these in the hands of the users before we start letting our imaginations run away with us in wireless flights of fancy.
USRP + GNU radio: software-defined radio meets open source
If you've never heard of software-defined radio, that may be because some might liken it to outlaw pirate-radio; it's a wild-west wireless device which will, in theory, receive or transmit radio data on any frequency (or all frequencies simultaneously) by way of software-based controls. Not exactly the device the FCC's been hoping and praying for since, well, it kind of undermines the whole concept of segmented spectrum and delineated radio devices and services. But that's all the more reason why Wired's profile of one Eric Blossom and one Matt Ettus, is rather astounding. As creators of the Universal Software Radio Peripheral, they've managed to fit a modular SDR system into a $550 USB device, capable in theory of doing anything from receiving (and transmitting) HDTV, to GPS, to EV-DO, to AM radio on their specified frequencies, or others. Nothing new or unusual in and of itself, but the cost of the part, and its built-in integration with run of the mill desktop computers is what's unprecedented. Which is why if you think we'll ever see SDR in America, you're crazy; the government, which makes tens of billions of dollars from spectrum sales, has precisely zero interest in allowing software defined radio to run free. Funny, because as the cost of SDR goes down, it could actually end all our wireless transmission problems once and for all. Imagine an SDR-based cellphone that with one chip does GSM, CDMA, EV-DO, HSDPA, DMB, FLO, DVB-T, Bluetooth, WiFi, WiMax, etc. It's not impossible, you know. In fact, according to Blosson and Ettus, it's apparently quite easy.[Via Wired News]
