ADC and Mid-Tex Cellular team up in successful software defined radio field trial - Tests/Trials - Brief Article

Mobile Internet, The, Oct, 2003

ADC announced its role in a successful field trial involving the world's first all-software GSM base station system in a commercial cellular network. ADC's Digivance Long-Range Coverage Solution (LRCS) is paired with Vanu Inc.'s software to provide a software radio base station that serves Mid-Tex Cellular's network. Digivance LRCS functions as the remote transceiver system, allowing Mid-Tex to enhance its network by cost-effectively extending coverage and distributing capacity where it is needed, including areas that are often difficult to serve. The application runs on Hewlett-Packard ProLiant servers and uses a Telos Sonata SE softswitch to complete the solution.

In the field trial, which runs through the end of the 2003, Mid-Tex Cellular has used software defined radio (SDR) technology in its 8,000-square-mile 800 MHz network. The trial demonstrates the viability of an SDR base station solution and marks a significant milestone in the effort to provide rural cellular operators with a more flexible, cost-efficient wireless network. In the field trial, the SDR system is software-configured as a GSM base station and includes co-located and remote Digivance-powered antennas. The network's base station controller (BSC) and base transceiver system (BTS) are each a Vanu Software Radio application.

The system illustrates SDR's potential to deliver a cost-efficient solution that also gives wireless carriers more flexibility and efficiency improvements in the use of their radio spectrum. In addition, the solution is ideally suited to provide rural carriers with the ability to quickly deploy new services and simultaneously enable multiple technology standards across the network. This becomes a compelling roaming business model for rural operators. Future wireless networks will simultaneously support combinations of AMPS, TDMA, GSM/GPRS, EDGE, CDMA, and 3G technologies, allowing carriers to enter into flexible roaming agreements with nationwide operators.