Developing a new technology and using it in mobile telecommunication networks requires much effort in order to make sure the individual components will interact smoothly. That is conventionally achieved by way of costly standardizing—see for example GSM or UMTS—and by testing the individual components. That applies particularly to the network elements' interoperation with the terminals. However, a terminal's use of radio technologies is in the case of present-day terminals, restricted to a precisely defined possible range because using a radio technology means employing respectively special hardware for the respective radio technology.
In contrast to this, in the case of reconfigurable terminals or, as the case may be, software-defined radio devices a software-programmable transceiver allows a new, hitherto unsupported radio technology to be used by replacing the software that configures the transceiver. New radio technologies and standards can therefore be used simply by downloading software onto the terminal, meaning that even existing terminals are able to use new technologies in the radio domain later.
The present UMTS standard for example places stringent demands on the terminals, resulting, inter alia, in some manufacturers' already taking a “UMTS Lightweight” standard into consideration which, though less complex, nevertheless delivers the same performance in certain situations as the original standard. One of the associated prerequisites, though, is for not only the terminal but also the base station involved to be able to interpret the modified standard.
It is no longer guaranteed, though, through the new technology for terminals that interacting of the terminals such as, for instance, cell phones, with a base station or the other components in the network, can be fully tested. The terminals' reconfigurability can, even with utmost care being taken, give rise to disruptions resulting from software downloading. These can be due to faults in the applied software itself that can be ascribed to not being able to adequately test interacting with the network components for the devices.