The Forum Matures

3.4.1 – Early Results and Liaison with Europe

In February 1997, as the MMITS Forum’s Technical Committee was defining a technical architecture for a SDR, the US DoD established the Programmable Modular Communications System (PMCS) Integrated Product Team (IPT) to develop an open architecture for a repro-grammable radio based on commercial technology for DoD acquisition (see Chapter 2 by Bonser). Because some of the IPT members, all representatives of government agencies or their consultants, also participated in the SDR Forum’s definition process, the architecture in the Engineering Reference Model, Figure 3.1, that resulted from the PMCS activity was

submitted as a contribution to the Forum, where it was modified and incorporated into the Forum’s Technical Report.

Another product of the PMCS activity that was modified and adopted by the Forum’s Technical Committee involved the software applications interfaces that would make the architecture conform to open system standards. This interface definition is illustrated in Figure 3.2.

These two reference model concepts were the major focus of the first edition of the Forum’s Technical Report 1.0, ‘Architecture and Elements of Software Defined Radio Systems as Related to Standards’, which was issued in July 1997.

Attendees at the March 1997 meeting approved the bylaws as they had been modified by the attorneys, but they also asked the Steering Committee to review the provisions regarding

Figure 3.2 The PMCS software applications architecture Figure 3.1 The PMCS engineering reference model architecture

intellectual property in order to allow sharing of technical information while still protecting the intellectual property rights of members. These bylaws then became the basis for incor-porating the MMITS Forum as a California Non-profit Mutual Benefit Corporation in March 1997. The intellectual property issues were a topic of intense discussion in the Steering Committee between March and June due to a fear that material disclosed to the Forum would become the property of the Forum. Appropriate wording for an amendment to the bylaws was crafted as a result of discussions between the Forum’s legal advisor and the legal teams of several Forum members. The amendment made clear that intellectual property generated by and for the Forum, such as logos or certification marks, was to be protected by the Forum, but that intellectual property generated by an individual member was to remain the property of that member, and rights to that property would not be transferred to the Forum without a contract between the parties. The amendment to implement the intellectual property provisions was approved by the membership at the June 1997 meeting; at that time, a total of 15 paid members of the Forum were eligible to vote.

That year, the Forum began to significantly expand its activities outside of North America.

Forum representatives participated by invitation in a European Commission-sponsored Soft-ware Radio Workshop in Brussels in May 1997, and then in the European Union’s Advanced Communications Technologies and Services (ACTS) mobile communications summit meet-ing, held immediately prior to the Forum’s October 1997 meetmeet-ing, which was sponsored by Motorola SPS and Orange PCS, in Warwick, England.

By the end of 1997, the Markets Committee had initiated a pair of market demand forecast studies. A contract for the forecast for the commercial wireless market segment was awarded to the Sloan School of Business at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,³and another contract, to study the demand for civil government applications, was given to the State University of New York College of Technology.

3.4.2 1998 – Consolidation and Internationalization

Throughout 1997, the Technical Committee had continued to hold major working meetings, both by teleconference and in person, in addition to those conducted in conjunction with the general membership meetings. Consequently, early in 1998, version 1.1 of the Technical Report was ready for release. By revising the earlier version to include minor architectural changes to better support security concerns, a description of a software download process, and a definition of the software interfaces between modules, this second edition provided significantly more details on the requirements for SDRs.

The software download feature is central to the concept of SDRs. Among other advantages, it will facilitate repairing software errors by downloading patches, it will permit updating appli-cations or installing new appliappli-cations, and it will allow the addition of air interface options – all without the customer having to return the unit for servicing. Several scenarios were postulated for implementing these software downloads, but three were explored in detail:

† download from a smartcard inserted into a handheld or mobile terminal;

† over-the-air (OTA) download of a module; and

† OTA download of a complete air interface or waveform.

3This methodology and results of the MIT study are summarized in Chapter 4.

Each of these scenarios followed a sequence of initiation, acknowledgment, authentication, capability exchange, installation, and test. Some of these are critical issues. For instance, authentication of the source and destination are important to ensure that the downloaded software is appropriate and legitimate for the receiving device, and capability exchange lets the source know that the destination device is capable of running the downloaded software;

that is, all the essential hardware and software components are in place. Some scenarios had additional phases, such as billing and licensing confirmation, which are necessary to meet the economic imperatives. Adequate security is an unstated requisite for all scenarios to prevent spoofing and hacking.

The section on interfaces satisfied one of the primary objectives of the Forum because an adequate definition of the interfaces between modules is one of the stated foundation elements of an open system. For the purposes of the Technical Report, these interfaces were referred to as application programming interfaces (APIs), even though they are not strictly software interfaces. This reference makes sense because the term API is well estab-lished and has a connotation of providing a level of abstraction appropriate to define interface design information. Also, the designers recognized that functions performed in software in one instantiation may be performed in silicon in a subsequent implementation, and the inter-face should be unchanged.

The APIs were defined at several different levels of granularity to allow for different implementations to achieve common goals, and they were designed to permit future expan-sion of capabilities. Again, this designation satisfies one of the basic objectives of the Forum by allowing manufacturers to select their own design and implementation in such a way as to maximize their own value while still meeting the interface constraints. In addition, although the initial definition of the APIs looked like that of a message-passing interface, that situation could change in the future, especially because there were ongoing discussions pertaining to the use of formal design languages. In June 1998, version 1.2 of the Technical Report was released with an enhanced description of the APIs and with further definition of the API messages needed for the software download process.

During the year, the DoD Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Joint Program Office (JPO) had initiated its effort to define a standard architecture for the US military community (see Chapter 2 by Bonser). As with the PMCS activity, many of the participants in the JTRS program were also participants in the SDR Forum, so the results of that program also fed into the mobile architecture being proposed for the Forum.

By the end of the year, version 2.0 of the Technical Report had been produced. This document not only was restructured to make it easier to understand, but also it added more detail on the APIs and software download process, it presented enhanced architectures for the mobile and handset devices, and it showed the results of the initial activity in base station and satellite areas.

While the Technical Committee was working on the standards definition, the Markets Committee was obtaining the data to forecast market demand for SDRs. The MIT study was completed early in the year and was presented at a media event in San Francisco in May.

This study, which focused on the commercial wireless industry, was augmented with other data to create the Market Demand Report ‘Software Defined Radio: a Window of Opportunity in Wireless Communications’, which was released in November.

During 1998 the Forum continued its outreach activities to Asia and Europe. Forum repre-sentatives participated in a workshop sponsored by the Japanese Institute of Electronics,

Information, and Communications Engineers (IEICE) Software Radio Working Group in Tokyo in April 1998 and at the May general meeting of the Forum, Professor R. Kohno, Chair of the IEICE group, presented the results of that workshop and described the technical progress being made in Japan (for an update of this, please see Chapter 8). In June, the Forum participated in the First International Software Radio Workshop, jointly organized with the European Commission and collocated with the annual ACTS summit meeting held in Rhodes, Greece, and held its September meeting, hosted by Rohde and Schwarz, in Munich, Germany.

Continuing discussions regarding confusion over the MMITS acronym led the Steering Committee to seek a more readily identifiable name for the Forum and, in May, the Commit-tee suggested to the membership that the title Software Defined Radio Forum would more readily convey the purpose of the Forum. By the end of the year, the 27 members of the Forum had formally approved the new name, and the legal process of changing the name had been completed.

3.4.3 1999 – Globalization and Growth

In February 1999, the Forum sponsored a day-and-a-half track on SDRs at Penton Publish-ing’s Wireless/Portable industry conference in San Jose, California. The track, dubbed

‘SDR’99’ by the Forum and led by Shinichiro Haruyama, of the Sony Computer Science Lab in Tokyo, featured a dozen speakers who made presentations and who participated in panel sessions on the changing and expanding requirements of next-generation wireless communications and network devices. They defined the features needed for the new networks, presented an evaluation of the state of the art and a critical assessment of the future for SDR technology, and then described the challenge to be met in the shift away from a hardware-centric design for radios toward a new paradigm in which implementations are a changing mix of hardware and software. SDR’99 also featured an overview of the SDR market based on the Forum’s Market Forecast report.

Continuing the cooperative activities with the IEICE Software Radio Study Group, the Forum’s general meeting in March 1999 was held at Yokosuka Research Park, one of Japan’s major communications research centers. The first 2 days of the meeting followed the Forum’s usual working session agenda, but the third day was given over to the study group’s technical presentations. Similarly, in September, the Forum held a meeting in Europe; the venue was Stockholm, and the host was Ericsson.

Other Forum activities during the year included raising the level of cooperation with the FCC’s Office of Engineering Technology (OET). The Forum had been in contact with that office in 1998 through presentations, informal discussions, and teleconferences to ensure that software radios were recognized as an emerging technology that could be affected by the regulatory process. That fairly low level of interaction was stepped up in 1999 as the Forum discussed the need for international agreement and consistency in the regulatory process to facilitate global circulation of cellular handsets. The firm of Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis was retained as the Forum’s regulatory counsel to help the Forum suggest inputs to the FCC’s planned Notice of Inquiry (NOI) and Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) process regarding software radio technology.⁴

4Mike Grable of Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis describes the evolution of the FCC’s SDR regulatory activities in the US in Chapter 11.

To facilitate changes to the Forum’s Technical Report, the Technical Committee contracted with an editor to participate in Technical Committee meetings and to update the Technical Report. Version 2.1, with added sections on the mobile radio software frame-work, base station architecture, and smart antenna definitions, was released in November 1999. The mobile radio architecture, modeled on that of the JTRS JPO, was based on an object-oriented conceptual model with a Core Framework, an Operating Environment, and a Rule Set, with the design rules embedded in the attributes.

By the end of 1999, the Forum had 78 members.

3.4.4 2000 – Standards – Facilitation of the Market

The Forum’s emphasis on regulatory issues increased in 2000. On March 17, the FCC issued its NOI⁵on SDRs (ET Docket Number 00-47), asking for comments from the public ‘‘to help us evaluate the current state of software defined radio technology and to determine whether changes to the Commission’s rules are necessary to facilitate the deployment of this technol-ogy’’. This step is often a precursor to a proposed change in the Commission’s rules.

The NOI asked 28 specific questions in the following general categories relating to the SDR technology:

† The State of Software Defined Radio Technology

† Interoperability

† Improving Spectrum Efficiency and Spectrum Sharing

† Equipment Certification Issues (including Security Issues)

In a statement accompanying the NOI, Commissioner Susan Ness expressed her view of the technology and gave some insight into the FCC’s perspective when she said, ‘‘I am bullish about the prospect of ‘software defined radio’ … that will allow communications equipment to adapt to multiple standards and add service features without changes to the equipment’s hardware.’’ She continued, ‘‘it has the potential to add new meaning to the words ‘anywhere, anytime’’’.

In April, the Forum sponsored an all-day regulatory workshop in Washington, DC, in order to prepare the Forum’s response to the NOI. In its submission to the FCC, the Forum noted the importance of the need to establish rules for SDRs in order to encourage the research and development of the technology. The Forum reasoned that manufacturers may not be willing to make investments without knowing what rules and regulations would be applied to their products. Moreover, the Forum made the point that regulatory efforts must address global issues, not just national ones, if they are to accommodate global circulation of user terminals.

The Forum then went on to discuss each of the Commission’s questions in detail. In general, the Forum adopted a position that no new regulations were necessary for SDRs because, to a large degree, the technology merely replaced existing functions currently performed in hard-ware with a softhard-ware implementation. The exception to this was the need for minor changes in the rules on equipment modification and relabeling so that all information currently required to be displayed on an FCC label could instead be made available on a user display screen, allowing thereby for functionality and labeling of products in the field to be changed.

Twenty-four organizations responded to the Commission’s NOI; most of them agreed

5See Chapter 11 for further detail of the FCC process and activity.

with the Forum’s positions, but some did not. For instance, the Federal Law Enforcement Wireless Users Group was concerned that an intelligent SDR could disrupt public safety operations when looking for unused channels. As is customary, the Forum, as well as nine other organizations, took advantage of the opportunity to present reply comments to affirm supporting positions and rebut opposing positions, as well as to clarify or restate their own positions. In its reply comments, filed on July 14, 2000, the Forum pointed out that ‘‘it is extremely important for the Commission to avoid prematurely setting standards or rules that freeze SDR in its current state of development and unnecessarily stifle commercial innova-tion’’. To encourage the Forum’s continued participation in the NOI/NPRM process, Dale Hatfield, head of the FCC OET, presented the keynote talk at the Forum’s June meeting in Seattle.⁶

As was expected, the FCC followed the NOI with the release of an NPRM. On December 8, the Commission announced its intent to amend its rules and streamline equipment authoriza-tion procedures for SDRs. It proposed a new Class Three permissive change that would allow equipment manufacturers to modify the frequency, power, and modulation of SDRs without the need to file a new authorization application. In addition, the Commission suggested permitting electronic labeling of SDR devices so that third parties could also modify a radio’s technical parameters without having to return it to the manufacturer for relabeling. In addi-tion, on December 1, the FCC announced a policy for ‘‘Promoting the Efficient Use of Spectrum by Encouraging the Development of Secondary Markets’’, in which they proposed rules to enable licensees with unused spectrum to lease it to others who can put it to use.

Because licensees obtain spectrum rights through a ‘primary’ spectrum market, such as an auction, the lessees would be operating in a ‘secondary’ market. The intent is to put to use spectrum that would otherwise remain idle, thereby possibly relieving some of the demand for new spectrum.

While the Regulatory Committee was working on the FCC issues, the Markets Committee was involved in creating the Forum’s first annual technical products exposition. Ten compa-nies exhibited their SDR-related products at an evening session during the June 2000 meeting in Seattle; the booths included examples of components, systems, and test equipment. In addition, the Markets Committee undertook a redevelopment of the Forum’s web site using contractor support to redesign the site.

For the first time, the Forum held five general meetings during the year; three in the US, one in Europe, and one in Asia. The first day of the April 2000 meeting in Seoul, Korea, was a Software Radio Workshop sponsored by the Radio Communications Broadcasting Commit-tee (RCBC) of the Korea Electromagnetic Engineering Society (KEE). This workshop consisted mostly of presentations by representatives from Japan, Korea, and the Republic of China, which highlighted the state of the art of software radio research in Asia.

After several meetings with the Mobile Execution Environment (MExE) Forum of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the SDR Forum entered into a liaison agreement with that group to coordinate software download activities.⁷

6The Seattle meeting also saw invited presentations from Japan and from Europe (from the Virtual Centre of Excellence in Mobile & Personal Communications, Mobile VCE). These technical activities are described, respec-tively, in Chapter 8 and in the chapter by Moessner in the companion volume to this book Software Radio: Enabling Technologies, edited by W. Tuttlebee, published by John Wiley.

7Chapter 9 describes the MExE standard and its positioning as a first step to global SDR standards.

The September meeting in Paris was hosted by Thales and included a review of military and commercial software radio activities in Europe. This meeting also included the initial meeting of the Forum’s Roadmap Task Group (RTG), which had been chartered to develop an updated multiyear roadmap of SDR in the commercial wireless, civil government, and defense markets. Also at this meeting, the Technical Committee initiated discussions about restructuring to create two major subgroups, one for commercial wireless interests and the other for government-related and other activities.

At the annual meeting in Mesa, Arizona, in November, the Steering Committee announced three major bylaws changes:

† three additional Steering Committee positions were created to accommodate

† three additional Steering Committee positions were created to accommodate