[3GScottishUser]

From The Sunday Times (17/09/2006):

A SMALL American company with rights to an apparently breakthrough wireless technology is seeking to raise £30m from London investors, and hoping for a market valuation of up to $750m (£400m).

XG Technology, based in Florida, claims that the power efficiency, cost effectiveness and range of “xMax” could transform the telecoms industry. In trials, it has been able to transmit video over 18 miles, using little power and relying only on cheap base stations.

Rick Mooers, the merchant banker who is XG’s chief executive, said xMax could be enormously “disruptive” — seizing a big slice of the revenues that are expected to be earned by mobile-phone companies, Intel and other technology firms.

XG is seeking a high valuation for a company that has yet to generate its first revenues. However, Mooers said XG had already received $20m of signed orders from Florida firms that are keen to introduce commercial broadband services over xMax next year.

XG plans to make its money by selling base stations for $50,000 a time, and by selling the required xMax handsets. Mooers said that an xMax network sufficient to cover America could be built for less than $15m — a fraction of the multi-billion-dollar cost of building a mobile-phone network.

It is also a fraction of the estimated $3 billion cost of the network needed to deploy Wimax — another new wireless technology that has been heavily backed by Intel.

XG has generated considerable controversy in certain parts of the telecoms industry. Some critics have even claimed that its technology defies the laws of physics.

However, XG and xMax have been given a vote of confidence by Stuart Schwartz, professor of electrical engineering at Princeton. Schwartz has said the sceptics “don’t understand what XG is doing”. The low power required, 50W, could allow xMax to use unlicensed spectrum to transmit television, video and wireless broadband.

The company’s promoters said it was extremely rare for a true technology leader to list in the UK. Credit Suisse, an investment bank known for its technology expertise, has spent several months advising XG. However, XG is being brought to the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) by the much smaller Smith & Williamson, with Hichens Harrison acting as broker.

It is highly unusual for a leading technology company to float using advisers that would not generally be regarded as first tier. It was suggested this weekend that Credit Suisse had ducked out of the float because it does not handle transactions on AIM.

However, Mooers, who has spent years trying to commercialise xMax, is known for his suspicion of big companies.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8209-2361227,00.html

More Info: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/wireless/0,39020348,39235645,00.htm

http://www.xgtechnology.com/default.asp

[Hands0n]

*checks calendar for 1st April date*

Wow! If XG really can deliver they will certainly upturn very many applecarts. It all rather depends on how the technology is pitched, will it be allowed to interconnect with the MNOs [for voice calls and texts] who will not want anything to do with it.

$15M to build out the entire USA? Gawd, we're looking at less than £5M to build out the entire UK then, surely!! That's a week's business expenses to the average MNO, I'd contend :D Good reason for raised eyebrows!

[Ben]

18 miles? Crikey. The digital divide could yet be bridged! All sounds a bit pie in the sky atm, but I'm very interested to learn more about xMax.

[3GScottishUser]

Its amazing how technology finds solutions for applications over time.

Who'd have thought DAB spectrum would have been used to deliver mobile TV even a year ago?

Wi-Max and now this new development look to be potential compeditors to that expensive 3G bandwidth that the MNO's paid billions for a few years ago. Still thats the risk with technology and the 5 who paid the huge sums to the treasury bought their tickets and had better try and make some revenues fast before they find themselves competing with newer leaner technology solutions.

Looks like the cost of calling will keep on falling and the 3G MNO's should be afraid...... very afraid!!

[Hands0n]

Thinking on about it, this almost had to happen to follow 3G and all of its recent enhancements (HSDPA and HSUPA). 3G has sowed the notion of higher wireless speeds and someone, somewhere, is very likely to come up with something even faster and more efficient/economical. Go back to the days of TACS and ATACS (Analogue to you in new money) and the sheer thought of GSM and how it works would be unthinkable, pure laboratory theory. But in due course that theory is put into a practical application.

So why shouldn't the likes of XG push the very laws of physics? After all, isn't it the Quantum Physicists who have broken or seen through the very well established laws of physics that have been held to be sound for so long? The application of Quantum theory into practical products may well take us into territory we all currently cannot imagine! But that is probably for the unforseeable future:)

Good luck to XG, I say. I wish them well and if they really can wipe the floor with existing wireless technology then I am thrilled to bits.

I do suspect that wireless is at the point that Personal Computing was with the early IBM and Compaq computers. Although it has been around for a while the enabling of drastic [and unimaginable] change is coming about. The MNOs can do one of two things, if XG's technology is truly viable. They can buy into it and perform significant damage limitation. Or they can fight against it, lose and end up costing themselves billions more in the effort.

The Customer can only win, and that really and truly is all that counts.

[3GScottishUser]

I agree with the above.

Is'nt that what the big 4 incumbents did when they paid all the money for 3G licences. They were protecting their franchise and I think the same will have to happen with anything new that threatens the turf of the current wireless providers.

Where will it be in 10 years? £10 a month for all you can speak, text and surf from your mobile device? I cant think why not with the downward pressure on prices and the cost of the investment in technology being written down.

[Hands0n]

Where will it be in 10 years? £10 a month for all you can speak, text and surf from your mobile device? I cant think why not with the downward pressure on prices and the cost of the investment in technology being written down.

Excellent question, and one that could be debated for all of those 10 years no doubt :D But I wonder if we'll have to wait quite that long to be getting to that princely sum of currency of The Queens Realm. Already we are [beginning] witnessing through convergence the bringing under a single fee Landline, Broadband Internet and Mobile telephony. These are early days even, and we should anticipate even further downward pressure on the prices or increased "bang" for our buck.

Perhaps we'll end up paying a simple :eek: and low-cost Communications Fee which will incorporate all of our electronic information feeds. Feeds over which we may, if we wish, buy additional content such as music or video (current movies). Basically taking the paradigm of how we live our lives today; nipping down the video store for a film tonight, buying a CD from the music store etc. The principle being that the medium [2G, 3G, WiMax, xMax etc.] becomes almost irrelevant and is priced accordingly.

Surely, as the actual technical costs plummet in correspondence with capacity increasing the benefit must be passed to the Customer. Always providing that our Government doesn't get all greedy again like they did with the 3G licences.

Talk about giving the Golden Goose a jolly good kicking in! :rolleyes:

[3GScottishUser]

'Absolutely'..... sorry that was someone I recall from another place.....:confused:

[Ben]

'Absolutely'..... sorry that was someone I recall from another place.....:confused:
It Abs0lutely was :p

[3g-g]

Interesting, very interesting *strokes chin*. However... There's a stumbling block that I can see them having in Europe (and anywhere with a GSM900 licence!) for their technology. At the moment this all operates on the 900MHZ band.


Operating in the unlicensed ISM 900 MHz band

http://www.xgtechnology.com/products.asp

Which, over in the states is fine, it's part of the unlicenced ISM band, which can be used pretty much as you like from what I can gather (in the US that is), it looks very much like a frequency that, say, we use for our home WiFi etc, up in the 2.4GHz range here, a part of the spectrum where low powered devices can operate. But it's not the case in the UK, 900MHz is where O2 and Vodafone operate. So, looking for a bit more info on the ISM band I found this... the interesting part is in bold.


Both the 900-MHz and 2.4-GHz bands have advantages. Both reside in the ISM (industrial/scientific/medical) band, an unlicensed frequency band of 902 to 928 MHz, 2.4 to 2.483 GHz, and 5.725 to 5.875 GHz. Almost all of the transceiver and SOC products targeting wireless-sensor-network applications use the 900- to 928-MHz and 2.4- to 2.483-GHz bands. The 900-MHz band touts long broadcast range because of its relatively longer wavelength and its correspondingly longer battery life. However, lower frequency means the use of a larger antenna than a 2.4-GHz system requires. And, if you plan to sell your system into a global market, you will quickly encounter a lack of standardization in the 900-MHz range. For example, in Europe, you cannot use the 900- to 928-MHz band because it is part of the GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) network for cell-phone communication and, thus, is unavailable.

http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6313378

So, unless xG technology can convince both OFCOM and the Radio Authority to allocate them a part of the radio spectrum (of which I dont think there is any free atm?) or, allow them to ramp up the power in the 2.4GHz range, disturbing all our home WiFi networks, I can't see them bringing the technology to anywhere running a GSM900 network!

[Ben]

That is indeed interesting, and I'd imagine there are many other obsticals to the introduction of this technology also. One thing's for sure, if they are going to achieve anything like the claimed range then they wont want to get tied to a frequency in the GHz!

Surely capacity will also be a problem with this service, what with the advertised range.