T is too soon to describe the Bose family as an audio-world version of the Bush and Kennedy clans in politics, but they are off to a good start.

In 1964, Amar Bose, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and inventor, created the renowned high-fidelity sound systems company that bears the family name. Now, his only son, Vanu, is gaining recognition for radio-design technology every bit as novel as the sound systems that his father pioneered.

The younger Bose's four-year old company, Vanu Inc., is a prominent innovator in the effort to use software rather than hardware to control how radios, cellphones and all other wireless communications devices recognize and manage signals. Early versions of the technology, known as software-defined radio, are beginning to be deployed in military communications equipment and cellular base stations.

The goal is to develop software and related components that recognize various wave forms at any frequency in the radio spectrum and choose the appropriate applications to process them. A single device could provide cellphone service no matter what the format or frequency, exchange wireless messages with laptop or hand-held computers, and communicate with walkie-talkies or emergency services.

There is another potential benefit: being able to incorporate improved data speeds and features simply by downloading software, rather than replacing the customer's hardware or the company's network equipment.

"Why build a system to do one thing when you can build it with software to do many things and be upgradable to boot?" Mr. Bose said.

It is easier said than done. Software radio needs better antennas, advances in the chips that convert radio waves into digital streams of data and methods for using less power, among other things. But software radio's potential is so staggering that many experts say its spread over the next decade is inevitable.

Software-defined devices are too power hungry to make them practical for hand-held applications now, but eventually consumers will be offered cellphones that jump among the world's competing signal standards depending on which gives them the best performance or price wherever they happen to be. Unlike today's dual-mode cellphones, which are essentially two separate phones inside a single case accompanied by software that recognizes which one to turn on, true software phones would use the same hardware to interact with the incompatible networks.

Not only would a software phone have fewer components and, presumably, cost less to build, but it would also be easily reprogrammed to take advantage of improvements in the network. Consumers would not face decisions as they do today about whether to buy new phones to take advantage of advanced networks. Instead of facing vast, high-risk technology transitions once a decade, the cellphone industry could advance at a steadier pace, like the personal computer industry.

But there are more compelling uses for software radio technology that have drawn innovators like Mr. Bose and giant companies like Motorola and Boeing into the field.

The Defense Department in particular is counting on the technology to end the dangerous confusion that arises when different branches of the armed forces try to talk to each other, get data from satellites or control robotic weaponry with incompatible communications systems. Despite more than two decades of research and development, experts say, soldiers in combat often carry separate radio systems - one to talk to one another and another to communicate with air support.

Similar barriers plague police, fire and rescue agencies, many of which intentionally bought incompatible radio systems to minimize interference with one another. But after Sept. 11, many are looking to software radio technology to give them the flexibility to bridge incompatible systems when coordination becomes critical.

More recently, the Federal Communications Commission has singled out software radio as a possible means for expanding use of the radio spectrum while reducing interference in the most crowded portions. Such devices could, in theory, start a phone call in the portion of the spectrum currently assigned to cellphones and jump temporarily into unused parts of the television or public safety spectrum if more space was available there.

Mr. Bose's background and his enthusiasm as he shows off his prototypes make it hard to believe he ever considered doing anything with his life besides playing around with signals.