In heterogeneous networks, network selection is an important task for reconfigurable mobile devices (MDs). In the reconfigurable MD architecture that has been standardized by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the network selection functionality is handled by a software component called Mobility Policy Manager (MPM). In this paper, we present an implementation of the MPM whereby a reconfigurable MD conforming to the ETSI standard can select the most appropriate radio access network (RAN) to use. We implemented a reconfigurable MD test-bed compliant with the ETSI standard, and show that the network selection driven by the MPM enhances the throughput of the receiving MD by about 26% compared to the arbitrary network selection provided by a conventional reconfigurable MD without the functionality of MPM, verifying the functionality of the MPM.

There is a trend towards flexible radios which are able to cope with a range of wireless communication standards. For the integrated processing of widely different signals -- including single-carrier, multi-carrier, and spread-spectrum signals -- monolithic baseband receivers need universal formats for the signal representation and channel description. We consider a reconfigurable receiver architecture building on concepts from time-frequency (TF) signal analysis. The core elements are TF signal representations in form of a Gabor expansion along with a compatible parameterization of time-variant channels. While applicable to arbitrary signal types, the TF channel parameterization offers similar advantages as the frequency domain channel description employed by orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing receivers. The freedom in the choice of the underlying analysis window function and the scalability in time and frequency facilitate the handling of diverse signal types as well as the adaptation to radio channels with different delay and Doppler spreads. Optimized window shapes limit the inherent model error, as demonstrated using the example of direct-sequence spread-spectrum signaling.

Software Defined Radio is beyond the education and initiation phase. The industry is addressing the needs of reconfigurable radio technology development, implementation, and application in a variety of marketplaces. Regulatory decisions are being formulated to facilitate SDR adoption and deployment. Continued dialog and cooperation among the industry organizations is an important factor in the rate of progress.