Now the industry demands feature delivery immediately after they have been processed in work groups or after they have been sent for acceptance. The accepted version number is now updated by meeting number or date. 3G developments may change the rate of specification changes, but the schedules are more rigorous than ever because of the enormous investment in licenses, competition from new operators and marketplace demand. In turn this means more rapid schedules, and probably several regimes of specification updates. Rapid updates are only possible through software solutions supported by web-based update material, refreshed when standards bodies process the specifications.
Monitoring is needed during development and installation phases.
There is also a need for emulating real network elements, especially during the installation phase where huge switches or controllers are impractical or unavailable. Utilising the same hardware for testing your base station makes the software-based concept a really safe investment. Consider the past evolution of PC processors. But the requirements for performance have not increased at the same rate. Therefore performance of PC hardware regarding the system under test is not a problem.