Building a Global Phone

When travel takes you outside of the United States, technological incompatibilities can render devices like your cell phone useless. Now a company by the name of Vanu is using technology called Software Defined Radio to try to change that.

All current radio technology--including standard radio, wireless Internet connections, and cellular connections--is hardware-based. The hardware defines the function of a device, whether it's an FM radio or a CDMA or GSM cell phone. With software-based radio, instead of having one cell phone that uses a GSM network and another that requires a CDMA network, you could have one handset with built-in software that lets you connect to both networks.

Vanu has demonstrated the technology with a prototype IPaq handheld. In addition to displaying screen icons for standard software, the unit also features icons that the company uses to launch analog FM radio (the standard commonly used for walkie-talkies) and P25, a digital FM standard used by emergency-responder radios. CDMA and GSM calling could be added in the future. The result is a more useful cell phone that you could operate on any cellular network anywhere. Consumer use of the technology is likely about five years away.