Described herein are systems and methods for providing software provisioning of functionality in a wireless communications device. Software-enabling functionality may include systems for granting a license to intellectual property or other pre-embedded functionality within a device. Communications to and from the device may be used to send or receive activation messages and/or licensing messages. Network capabilities may be provisioned using activation messages sent over the network. Activation messages may be sent in-band or out-of-band, for a device connected to the Internet and/or a mobile operator core network. Licenses may be required for any functions or intellectual property present on a given device. Activation may enable logical modules of a system-on-chip (SOC), functions of a software-defined radio (SDR), baseband, or DSP core. The disclosed systems and methods could thereby provide a new, flexible paradigm, namely, “Silicon as a Service (SaaS).”