Startup Prepares UWB Competitor For Market

LONDON — Startup company xG Technology LLC is preparing to bring to market a proprietary technology which it claims offers competition to ultra-wideband (UWB) techniques and can more efficiently use wireless spectrum and support more efficient communication over wireless or wired links than other technologies.

The company announced Thursday (Feb. 2) that it had appointed the London office of Credit Suisse as a strategic advisor, according to a Reuters report. Credit Suisse had been retained to help xG approach vendors of telecommunications infrastructure and boost xG’s presence around the world, the report said.

The company is adopting a licensing business model for its technology and said that first products would be ready for market by the end of the second quarter of 2006, the report added.

The technology patented by xG Technology (Sarasota, Florida) is known as xMax, which the company describes as a novel modulation and encoding technology that allows broadband signals to be transmitted at low power on already used parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The company claimed that xMax can boost the data rates of all wired and wireless communications: “It is not a compression technique, but rather a synergistic mix of two well-established communication approaches that dramatically improves spectrum utilization,” the company said in a section on frequently asked questions at its website.The company also refers to xG Flash Signaling as a “micro power wideband signal” used by xMax to convey information. xMax uses xG Flash Signaling to transmit wideband data at power levels well below the static noise found in the atmosphere. In addition, xMax uses an encoding system, called Index-N, to reduce sideband emissions while multiplying the data throughput rate. The xMax Variband feature can be used to adjust data rates on-the-fly, xG claimed in the FAQ.

The modulation and demodulation circuitry can be integrated into an FPGA or ASIC for deployment within computers, TV’s, cell phones and basestations, the company said.

xG claimed that the improved signal range that comes with reusing lower radio frequencies can produce cost savings, potentially of a factor of 50 compared to technologies such as WiMax, which currently require dedicated high frequency bands. The company said that four base stations could cover metropolitan London with indoor desktop service using lower frequencies made possible by xMax while 160 base stations would be required for the higher frequencies now proposed for WiMax.

“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,” said Stuart Schwartz, Princeton University engineering professor and IEEE Fellow, in a statement posted on xG’s website. Schwartz is listed as an xG company advisor.

The company was founded in 2002 by Joseph Bobier and Mooers Branton and Company, a merchant bank, to commercialize the xMax technology, which had been under development for several years. The core development of xMax is complete and xG Technology is now focused on product development for commercial deployment, the company said at is website.

xG Technology has a European office in Stockholm, Sweden, headed by Mats Wennberg. Wennberg was previously vice president of Microsoft Corp. responsible for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.“Our initial focus will be to offer an alternative technology within the fixed wireless market before turning our attention to the fourth generation (4G) wireless market, where the constraints of range, interference, spectrum allocation and throughput have not yet been overcome,” said Rick Mooers, executive chairman of xG Technology, in the statement.

xMax stands to improve the performance and profitability of not only broadband wireless networks, but can also boost data capacity of any system that uses RF transmissions such as DSL and coaxial cable networks. As such the technology could have an impact DSL services by extending range and data capacities and could also improve delivery of emerging services such as high definition TV (HDTV), video on demand, Internet Protocol television (IPTV) and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

“Our intention is to license the xMax technology across a number of key sectors beginning with the fixed wireless sector,” said Wennberg.

A prototype xMax unit has been used to transmit full motion video over a distance of 100 feet using 300-nW of transmitted power. If Wi-Fi wireless technology had been used it could have needed up to 3 million times more power, the Reuters report quotes Bobier as saying.

An article outlining the xMax technology, written by Bobier and Schwartz, could be found at Wireless Net DesignLine when this story was first posted.0