Reconfigurable mobile communications: compelling needs and technologies to support reconfigurable terminals

To date, research into reconfigurable mobile communications has predominantly focussed on the software radio concept, and specifically on the hardware technologies required to move physical layer processing into a programmable environment. Although an interesting and necessary challenge, this only represents a fraction of the overall support and technology required to realise the potential of the concept. Other necessary developments include network/terminal cooperation for seamless inter-standard handoff, QoS management, a secure software download mechanism, terminal software architecture supporting reconfiguration, configuration management, capability negotiation. Summarising results from early IST-TRUST (Transparently Reconfigurable Ubiquitous terminal) project deliverables, this paper describes the likely overall system environment, and the key technical challenges to be researched in TRUST for realising a reconfigurable terminal to meet the needs of users within that environment.