More Potential Snake Oil

Still and all, exciting snake oil!

A little-known start-up has demonstrated wireless broadband 1000 times more efficient than WiMax – and claims the technique could also make wireless LANs that will run for years on watch batteries.

xG Technology, based in Sarasota, Florida, used a transmitter not unlike a cordless phone base station, operating in the unlicensed - and crowded - 900MHz band, to send a 3.7Mbit/s data signal to a radius of 18 miles across the suburbs of Miami, using 50mW and an omnidirectional antenna.

...The system carried 7.4 Mbit/s per MHz per Watt, said Professor Schwartz. By comparison, GSM would have around 0.0058, and CDMA/EV-DO about 0.0085 Mbit/s per MHz per Watt.

...It can be applied to different parts of the radio spectrum, and can be used with or without a synchronisation beacon. For the highest bandwidth it could be used across a broad band of spectrum but using power levels below the signal level at which a licence would be required. Alternatively, it could be restricted - as with this example, to a narrower band, where no licence is required.

Neato.