XG Technology announces evaluation kit
Florida-based communications vendor xG Technology yesterday announced a simulation kit that will enable interested companies to evaluate the performance of xG’s Flash Signaling technology, which is the foundation of its xMAX communications system.
Known as the xG System Simulation Blockset, the evaluation kit can be ordered now for July shipping. The kit is used with MATLAB and SIMULINK to evaluate the performance of a complete xG system, including a narrowband carrierless xG transmitter.
“It basically allows you to plug in what you’d would like to use our xMAX technology for, and then it outputs what the waveforms will look like and what the ramifications of the technology are,” said xG Chairman and CEO Rick Mooers in an interview with MRT. “It doesn’t tell them how our technology works, but it show them what the performance criteria and ramifications are.”
Mooers said the xG kit will cost “substantially less” than a similar evaluation product being used for WiMAX technology.
Based on xG inventor Joe Bobier’s single-cycle modulation scheme, the patented xMAX technology will allow wireless operators to enter the mobile voice-over-IP (VoIP) market—and, later, the data and video markets—more economically than is possible with existing technologies, according to company officials. In fact, the carrierless version of xMAX allows an operator to build long-range, broadband networks without having to buy any expensive spectrum, according to the company.
However, xG Technology has guarded closely the manner in which xMAX works, leading to considerable skepticism in the industry. Mooers said he hopes the evaluation kit will help allay these fears.
“A lot of people have asked for that. It opens up the kimono a little bit, but we have to do that inevitably when we go to market,” Mooers said. “By seeing the waveforms, it will click in some of the engineers’ heads, ‘Aha, I see what they’re doing.’ They’ll understand the single-cycle aspect; they’ll see that it really does work.
“It’s anxiety-provoking for us, but it’s necessary.”
Mooers also said xG has a contract with its first customer, an unannounced U.S.-based manufacturer that is designing xMAX into its point-to-point Ethernet-backhaul product. The alpha product will not be ready until the end of August, but the agreement will allow xG to have its xMAX system on a chip by the beginning of August—five months ahead of the company’s initial schedule, Mooers said.
