Mobile phones today ship with a large number of wireless radios, each capable of performing at a certain frequency. Devices like Nokia’s upcoming N8 for example have support for all 4 GSM/EDGE bands and all 5 3G/3.5G bands. That’s 9 radios, and then don’t forget to include the one for Bluetooth, WiFi, and GPS. Each of these radios take up space and more importantly can not be changed. There’s a new technology, well not knew, but available in limited supplies, called software radios. Think of it like this: you buy an FM received using the old radio technology and the only stations you can listen to are the ones that have been programmed into it at the factory. If your favorite station broadcasts at a frequency other than the 4 or 5 in your device, then you’re out of luck. With a software radio you get a knob that lets you tune into an infinite number of stations. That’s a software radio in a nutshell.
The leader of software radios is Qualcomm and they’ve made a product called Gobi that they’ve been shipping in laptops for some time now. Since software radios typically consume more power, and laptops are taken by people around the world, sticking a software defined radio into a device of that form factor makes sense. This week Motorola announced the MC959B, an industrial mobile computer for people who work in heavy industry, that has a Qualcomm Gobi chip inside allowing it to tune into just about any GSM or CDMA frequency on the planet giving you coverage virtually anywhere a signal is broadcast. This is the first time something like this has hit the market.
Now none of you are going to buy this device, but like anything in the technology industry, with a little patience everything comes out to the market eventually. It isn’t going to be long when it doesn’t matter what frequency your local operator uses, your mobile phone will be able to “sniff out” wireless broadcasts and “tune into” what it needs to so you can get your Facebook pokes and Twitter Direct Messages irregardless of your location.
[Via: Phone Scoop]