Years ago, when the phone line modem ruled supreme as far as Internet connections were concerned (yes, there was an era before broadband, as much as it may be difficult to believe for people weaned exclusively on broadband), I remember reading a news article reporting that a company - Motorola, if my memory serves me well - had come out with a software modem! The idea was strikingly novel. After all, the modem merely converts binary data to analog signals and back, and there's no technical reason why software couldn't do it. The brilliant idea, for all its potential - cost savings over the price of a modem, and upgradability to higher speeds immediately come to mind - didn't really kick off, and phone line modems continued to rule the roost until they were made more or less obsolete with the advent of its speedier cousins, the ADSL modem and the cable modem.
They say that there's no force on earth that's more powerful than the force of an idea whose time has come. I believe that the time has now come for the idea of software replacing the functions that were once the exclusive domain of hardware. This time, though, it's the radio component in cellphone towers that's finding its existence being challenged by the young upstart, the software radio! And come to think of it, it makes excellent sense too. I mean, how great is it to have your cellphone tower upgrade to the next greatest technological advance in radio communications technology.
Go Vanu!
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