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New Wireless Technology Destined to Displace Current Methods |
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Written by Kory Mohr
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Friday, 04 November 2005 |
Amended from LinuxElectrons:
SARASOTA, FL – xG™ Technology has moved its promising spectrum
sharing technology out of the lab and into the field, successfully
conducting its first long-range wireless tests of xMax – a novel radio
frequency (RF) signaling technique that represents an entirely new
approach to the problem of spectrum overcrowding.
Using only a VHF paging channel and negligible power in adjacent
sidebands, an xMax transmitter and receiver pair with ground level
antennas delivered data to the xMax receiver over a mile away. Ground
level testing presents an extraordinary challenge: the signal must
travel through buildings and other obstacles without significant loss
or distortion — a feat that more common microwave-based wireless
broadband techniques have difficulty achieving.
Transmitting at .0005 Watts, xMax
was able to demonstrate range orders of magnitude farther than other
broadband technologies such as Wi-Fi. By comparison, typical
performance of a Wi-Fi 802.11 hotspot at 1 Watt (or 2,000 times more
power than xMax) using ground level antennas is approximately 300ft
under similar non-line of sight (NLOS) conditions.
“Demonstrating that broadband wireless communications can
occur at such micro-power levels in the presence of interfering signals
overturns long-held industry ideas,” said Joe Bobier, President of xG
Technology, LLC and inventor of the technology. “What is really
exciting, however, is that xMax’s unique signal profile is a perfect
fit for low frequency channels that have been previously unsuitable for
wireless broadband.”
Later this year, xG will release reference designs for sub-Gigahertz
fixed wireless base stations and consumer premise equipment (CPE) based
on current working prototypes that could outstrip the capabilities of
technologies like WiMAX.
Background on xMax
Unlike other wireless technologies that move as much power as
possible from the carrier into the information-bearing sidebands, xMax
does just the opposite, placing more than 99 percent of its power
within a narrowband carrier while keeping its sideband energy at
micro-power levels. Typically –60dB to –100dB below the carrier, xMax’
unique information-bearing sideband, dubbed xG Flash SignalTM, can be
as much as 100,000 times below the FCC’s “Part 15” regulations.
Lower frequencies – located below one Gigahertz on the spectrum – are
well known by communications engineers to outperform higher
frequencies. The performance shortfall is so stark that it can take
25-50 times more towers to wirelessly cover a given area using
Gigahertz frequencies. The problem, however, has been that lower
frequencies have been divided into small segments for thousands of
disparate uses. This overcrowding of the lower spectrum has left
wireless broadband service providers with no other option than to shift
to higher frequencies—accepting a hefty price/performance penalty.
xMax is set to change all of that by enabling wireless
broadband at sub-Gigahertz frequencies. xMax only requires a narrow
segment of unoccupied spectrum in order to place its carrier signal,
while its proprietary xG Flash Signal is sent at such unusually low
power levels that it can operate far below the point of impacting other
systems, essentially allowing it to share spectrum with existing users.
“The success of this test confirms what we’ve always
believed,” said Rick Mooers, Executive Chairman of xG Technology. “xMax
is likely to be an equation-changer in the wireless and wireline
telecom industries.”
xMax is already making waves within the engineering community.
Dr. Stuart Schwartz, Princeton University engineering professor and
IEEE fellow, has stated: “xG technology can deliver broadband speeds
with a remarkably efficient use of the radio spectrum. It is a
technology that has the potential for a major impact on the area of
wireless communications.”
xG’s FCC counsel, Hal Mordkofsky, believes that xMax may
impact communications policy in similarly profound ways. “One of the
biggest problems facing the Federal Communications Commission is the
increasing shortage of the usable frequency spectrum. The long-term
solution may very well be xMax, which makes far more efficient use of
the frequency spectrum than has ever been possible.”
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