Rich Tehrani took xG Technology's xMax technology, a WiMAX / LTE competitor for a (literal) test drive.

Rich writes:

xG Technology proclaimed in 2005 that they have a revolutionary technology which allows wireless broadband using unlicensed and licensed frequencies. They said they could build the equivalent to a WiMAX network without the need to spend a massive amount on spectrum auctions and moreover, their technology had better range than WiMAX.

It seemed too good to be true and after some years of waiting, the communications industry got impatient. After all, this revolutionary technology had the potential to change the way wireless networks are deployed. If it was real, where was it? Again, it seemed beyond what was possible and after time, even patient old me figured the story didn't add up. I even asked the company to show us the technology so we could set the record straight.

Rich got a full demo of the xMax wireless technology by driving through Florida and talking on their SIP-based phone, which operates at 902-928 MHz. How's the range? Well, according to Rich's article, one of xG Technology's customers, Townes Tele-Communications, Inc. has a few towers and their 100 foot tower has a range of 2.5 miles while one at 350 feet in the air has 6-8 mile range and xG Technology claims it is superior in coverage area to the nearby GSM equipment. According to Rich's article, "Well for a cool $2 billion you could have 70% POP coverage for 452 metros or about 90% of the population of the US. This would include at least a megabit of bandwidth per channel."

Rich has full-on video action of this very cool test drive. Go check it out.