Wow. Techworld is reporting on a demonstration of wireless communications sent at 3.7Mbit/s to a radius of 18 miles using just 50mW and an omnidirectional antenna using a technology called xMax, developed by xG Technology. If this is for real, that’s on the order of 1000 times more efficient than GSM, CDMA or WiMax. The company plans to target long-range wireless, but Princeton EE professor Stuart Schwartz claims he has seen it also demonstrated as a personal-area network, giving 2Mbit/s over 40 feet using just 3 nanoWatts.
If this is all true then it’s revolutionary. To his great credit, Techworld reporter Peter Judge has a full companion article laying out the several places where reporters have to take the company at its word about the technology and the honesty of the demo, as well as remaining potential hurdles such as preemptive regulation and the possibility of reflections or interference once other transmitters start using the same system. But we’ll know soon enough whether it’s more than just snake oil, and if so it’s going to be darned impressive.
(Thanks to Kurt for the link.)