[[update: be sure to look at the comments here for some sound defense of SCA.]]

Dr. Ronald Jost spoke this morning at the second day of the IDGA’s Software Radio Summit. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for C3 Space and Spectrum said essentially that there was a major disconnect between what industry saw as the advantage of software defined radios — the programmable radios capable of being configured for multiple types of communications and being upgraded via software– and what DOD wanted them for. While industry is dazzled by the potential to program all varieties of new custom waveforms, the DOD, he said, just wanted to use SDRs to help consolidate its communications networks toward a single, IP-based topology–and save some money on maintenance of the equipment.
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