Aditya Kaul’s (Pioneer Consulting's, Senior Analyst) response to the original article “Ericsson Launches Groundbreaking Multi-Standard Radio Base Stations”.

Implications:

Ericsson has always been hesitant in declaring that they use SDR (software defined radio) in base stations. Does this latest announcement bring a change in their attitude towards the importance of software upgrades in base stations?

Analysis:

Ericsson has announced the availability of a multistandard base station that can operate across GSM, UMTS, HSPA and LTE. This is a big shift from their earlier strategy of treating GSM separately from UMTS and HSPA. Having a common BTS platform that can upgrade using software is a feature that can only be introduced using SDR (software defined radio) technology. Although Ericsson has been using some form of SDR in the past, this might be the first time that they have indirectly acknowledged the importance of the SDR concept in base stations. With Ericsson having the largest market share in the base station market, this is a marked change in their attitude. They have openly been dismissive of SDR in the past. However with recent announcements by ZTE, Huawei on SDR base stations, who have been giving them a run for their money in recent bidding wars in India, Ericsson may have been forced to provide the same functionality in base stations, without openly using the term 'SDR' in their marketing literature.

In my opinion the RBS 6000 and others (Nokia Flexi, ZTE and Huawei multistandard platforms) are still far away from what a perfect Multiprotocol Multiband (MPMB) base station should be. This is because for adding LTE functionality, although the operator can use the same cabinet and do a software upgrade, there is still a need for adding additional antenna elements and RF heads. This adds on additional costs, which operators still need to undertake.

The bigger question that still needs to be answered is how do software upgradeable base stations change the business models in wireless equipment, which has been largely based around equipment replacement?

However, for now the good news is that LTE is definitely going to a key entry point for large scale SDR technology in base stations. I have predicted the same in my latest SDR Base Station report. Also having Ericsson on the SDR bandwagon (although not quite expressively) is great!

Source: Gerson Lehrman Group