The problem with technology is that there is always new and (sometimes) better technology coming to the market.  Many times technology that is only a few years old and the hardware has good life left becomes obsolete because of new advances.  It helps when the technology has components that can be updated instead of completely replacing the entire system.

No, radios are not required when using cell phones to transmit the signal.  Part of the change that is making cell phone transmission possible is the advancement in wireless broadband.  The new systems from Sprint and Verizon in particular are taking the latency problems out of the equation.