Software Defined Radio

A Software Defined Radio (SDR) is a radio that provides software control over radio system functionalities, such as the frequency, the modulation type and transmit power. This makes it easy to combine different radio standards in a single terminal. The different standards (like GSM, UMTS FDD, UMTS TDD, Wi-Fi and CDMA2000) are running as software modules on a generic hardware platform.

SDR is seen as an important technology to make global roaming really happen.

Another advantage of SDR is the possibility of uploading new or revised radio standards over-the-air to a terminal.