Meet xMax, the dark horse in the wireless broadband race

Stuart Corner
Monday, 23 July 2007 17:25

Opinion and Analysis

If you thought the battle for the future of wireless broadband was a two horse race between 3G LTE and mobile WiMAX, meet the dark horse: xMAX.
 

A new report from Frost & Sullivan claims that "next generation mobile broadband technologies...hold the promise of transforming the mobile broadband landscape." And it lists these as 3G Long Term Evolution (LTE), Mobile WiMAX and xMAX. No surprises in the first two. But what is xMax?

The technology is proprietary and the brainchild of Fort Lauderdale, Florida based xG Technologies. It first hit the headlines in mid 2005 and xG's claims for its stellar performance were greeted with great scepticism - "xG Technologies - Physics or Snake Oil?" was one typical headline.

How things have changed! Frost & Sullivan provides comparison and analysis of the various technologies in a new rep, "Mobile WiMAX, xMax and 3 G LTE - an Analysis of Potential Mobile Broadband Technologies." It says of xMax that the technology "will potentially enable service providers to promote unlimited local and long distant voice calls as well as unlimited text messages at very low monthly prices," and that "xMax is a likely prospect to be the first 4G technology to be commercially available in 2008."

When xMAX first surfaced in mid 2005 I wrote: "US news sites were abuzz this week with reports of a wireless technology claimed capable of delivering broadband speeds in the sub GHz bands using a combination of narrowband and ultra wide band technologies. The technology, known as xMax, is claimed to achieve its throughput by transmitting across a very wide range of frequencies (which could be licensed to other users) but at power levels so low that it causes no interference. It is able to use these transmissions for data by means of a 'co-coordinating signal transmitted in a conventional narrowband channel.