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"Let the developers hack on DSP," say the maintainers of the popular software defined radio development toolkit. "Software interfaces are for humans, not the other way around."

The combination of the LimeSDR Mini low-cost software defined radio platform and satcom software distributed on a dedicated app store designed to accelerate development while bringing down the barriers to entry.

New release adds support for network slicing in NFV, management over multi-administrative domains, and multi-site network connectivity, all highlighted by ETSI as of benefit to 5G networks thanks to its partnership with 3GPP.

"In the long run, telco edge deployments will become the de facto platforms to deliver services close to end users and enterprise facilities," says ABI Research analyst Don Alusha. "5G and edge are partner technologies, and in the long term neither can become truly profitable without the other.

Modular design includes high-performance general-purpose processing (GPP), LimeSDR-based software defined radio (SDR), and an app ecosystem designed to speed development, deployment, and reconfiguration of network services ranging from voice and data relay to edge-network processing and caching.

"Applications include amateur radio, cellular networks, and much more," explains Lime Micro's Andrew Back of the project. "LimeRFE takes low-cost, high-performance, incredibly flexible software-defined radio to the next level. We can’t wait to see what the community builds with the combination of LimeSDR/LimeNET Micro and LimeRFE."

"The TIP CrowdCell, backed by Vodafone and Facebook among others, is designed to create 4G and 5G small cells for use in smart homes, offices, campuses and similar, to deliver enhanced connectivity quickly and easily via a plug-and-play device," the paper details, ushering in the "era of software-defined radio" for operators.

"5G New Radio is, however, much more complex than LTE given beam steering and mmWave signals," writes Martin Rowe in a piece for EDN. One possible answer: machine learning smarts at the network's edge.

"We need a new architecture for applications that changes the fixed, hierarchical client/server model," says Armani. "We need to build a larger, faster cloud where billions of devices at the edge can participate as either clients or servers, and provide services directly for one another. We need the edge cloud."

"There's going to be a transformation from the hardware side of things into a more open or disaggregated view," Chua tells Fierce Telecom. "Then from there, when you go up the stack, you would see more of the same thing."