The term was coined by the US trade title Wireless Design Mag to describe an emerging class of highly flexible transceivers.
It has since been used by a range of English-language electronics and telecoms trade journals across the globe, including EE Times Asia,[2] Electronics Weekly[3] (UK), Digitimes (Taiwan), EE Times[4] (US), and Light Reading[5] (UK / US) The device enabled telecommunications equipment manufacturers to cope with the lack of universal communication standards and frequencies.
One of the first such devices was Lime Microsystems microTCA Broadband transceiver,[6] demonstrated at Mobile World Congress in February 2008.
Fairwaves launched what it describes as the "first industrial-grade open-source base station[14]" on Hardware Freedom Day, April 2013.
Nuand announced it was looking for $100,000 funding for its BladeRF[13] platform on January 19, 2013, and raised nearly double ($191,422) its target in the 30-day fundraising cycle.