Reconciling Technical Ambitions and Business Realities of Cognitive Radio: Standardising Generic Interfaces for Cognitive Radio Reconfiguration

In this paper, we consider the problem that despite considerable Cognitive Radio (CR) research over the last decade and standardization efforts in DySPAN related topics in recent times, thus far, the commercial realisation of autonomous and intelligent networks has not been fulfilled. This is partly because of the complexity of deploying learning algorithms and protocol solutions that satisfy the conflicting stakeholder interests that have implications on existing business models and practices. In this paper we consider the proposition that the success of wider commercial deployment of CR network solutions will benefit significantly by the availability of an open and standard API mechanism that enable stakeholder interoperability, leading to new and innovative business models. The Cognitive Resource Management (CRM) architecture, which has recently been defined by the EU ARAGORN research project, is used as the basis for this approach. A brief analysis of telecom business models is used to understand the relative merits. We conclude that a standard set of generic interfaces can enables seamless cooperation across stakeholder and protocols boundaries to facilitate an evolutionary path for telecom business models through emergence of CR devices of different capabilities providing a great opportunity for product differentiation and optimization.