New technologies can lower cell phone service costs

FT. LAUDERDALE, USA: Our (the USA) public airwaves are one of the most regulated resources in modern times. Governments regulate airwaves—technically called radio frequency spectrum—to avoid interference so that, for example, television doesn’t interfere with radio or block your cell phone.

But the world of spectrum is changing, especially for mobile phones and wireless Internet services. In the past several years—mainly due to advances in digital technology—there have been great strides in avoiding interference through means other than assigning exclusive use of spectrum to specific users. These developments allow multiple users to use the same spectrum and still not interfere with each other.

By sensing their environment, these advanced mobile devices adapt on the fly to avoid interference. By working cooperatively, they have the ability to free-up capacity on spectrum that is already used for some other purpose.

Such breakthrough capabilities stand to dramatically change wireless industry economics by allowing the delivery of mobile voice and broadband services across free, unlicensed spectrum. This can lead to dramatically cheaper phone calls because cell phones currently use extremely expensive licensed spectrum.

xG Technology, one company employing such techniques, has developed the world’'s first mobile VoIP network using an unlicensed portion of the radio spectrum that has long been thought unsuitable for cell phone use. This spectrum in the 900MHz band is used by a cacophony of unlicensed devices ranging from cordless phones to medical instruments, and has considered too “noisy” for cell phone use.

By designing its xMax all-digital network from the ground up to use free, unlicensed spectrum, the company is opening the door to potentially cause a major shift in investment, business models and services in the cellular industry.

But what about call quality? Recently, one of the top independent experts in VoIP, Rich Tehrani, tested the xMax system and wrote, “…xMax worked well and is real. When you realize that this company may have found a way to take a frequency riddled with wireless garbage and turn it into a fully functioning wireless voice and data network you start to see how much of a game changer this could be for the wireless industry.”