XG field testing WiMAX, LTE rival tech.

Secretive US network technology start-up XG Technology is still pitching its wares, reporting this week that it is field testing its proprietary wireless broadband platform.

XG has flitted in and out of the news over the past couple of years and the industry seems divided over the potential of the firm’s technology, which is billed by the firm as a rival to both WiMAX and 3G/LTE.

The technology, dubbed xMax, uses a technique known as single cycle modulation to provide a 40Mbps link over a 15-20 mile radius using less than 1 watt of power. And the firm claims to be able to do this in unlicensed spectrum.

But with little else known about xMax, and the firm itself happier to make claims on its behalf rather than offer proven performance to the market, both XG and its solution have attracted sceptical responses.

Nevertheless, the company does have its backers. And one of them, Swiss-based Treco Group, a private conglomerate with major holdings in real estate, finance and telecommunications as well as a 4.4 per cent stakeholder in XG, also became one of the firm’s first customers late in 2008.

Under the agreement, Treco placed an order for 1,000 base stations and an option for a further 4,000, proposing to rent the equipment to XG’s territory partners in Florida, such as regional internet service providers and local telecoms carriers. This week the firm said base stations have now been deployed and field testing is underway by local telcos.

In its announcement XG acknowledges that its technology, “is a radical departure from existing technologies and so the company must prove that it actually works in the real world.”

The first also admits it’s been a rocky road, fraught with technical and financial hurdles as well as sceptics that will remain until the VoIP network is available to the public and working as promised.