Monday, January 19, 2015
Cellphone guts for the curious, Part II
Two years ago I published an email I received about the internal workings of a cellphone, and today, I received yet another email, from a fellow cow-orker about that previous email:
- From
- BXXXX XXXXX <XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
- To
- <sean@conman.org>
- Subject
- Re: Cellphone guts for the curious …
- Date
- Mon, 19 Jan 2015 12:08:13 -0500
Sean,
In reference to: http://boston.conman.org/2013/01/22.2
I passed this link along to a friend who is as technically talented as XXXX, but who is also as politically astute as he is technically astute. Here is his response:
Last time I checked, they are separate because the FCC says they have to be separate.
There was huge debate between focus and the phone manufacturers. The phone manufacturers wanted a single processor for both the air processor and the phone/app gui. The FCC said no because of the possibility of changing the radio firmware.
Disclaimer: I am not offering this for contradiction; just FYI and for discussion (if you wish). Both he and XXXX are way beyond me in this area, so I offer no opinions or views of my own. In other words, I am all ears.
While the FCC has jurisdiction over radio transmission, I think the separation of general purpose CPU and baseband processor has more do to with recertification than a legal mandate to be separated.
But I don't work for a cellphone manufacturer, so I might be mistaken.