Two years ago I published an email I received about the internal workings of a cellphone [1], 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 [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 (Federal Communications Commision) 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 (For Your Information) 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 [3], I think the separation of general purpose CPU (Central Processing Unit) and baseband processor has more do to with recertification than a legal mandate to be separated [4].
But I don't work for a cellphone manufacturer, so I might be mistaken.
[3] http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title47/47tab_02.tpl
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseband_processor#Overview