The Open Base Station Architecture Initiative (OBSAI), a forum comprising 115 telecommunications companies spanning the cellular base station, module and component manufacturing sector--among them Alcatel, Motorola and Nokia--has made available to non-members the first versions of its open base station interface specification documents.

The OBSAI base station specifications focus on the interfaces between the transport, base band processing and radio functional modules, and were initially made available to forum members in 2003. The specifications are compatible with GSM, GSM/EDGE, WCDMA and CDMA, and are available via the group's Web site, www.obsai.org

"Over the past couple of years, OBSAI has achieved its main goal of identifying which key areas of the base station interfaces could be made open, producing a concrete set of robust open interface specifications as well as functional module specifications related to these areas and making them available to members to utilize," said John Csapo, senior vice president of Samsung and OBSAI management board member, in a written statement.

Established in September 2002, OBSAI seeks to create an open market for cellular base stations in an effort to reduce both the time and money traditionally spent in the creation of new base station product ranges.