4G

Apr 1, 2007: “We're exactly on schedule — both strategically and in terms of the timeline — with everything we said we were going to do, which is really pleasing to me,” said xG Technology CEO Rick Mooers.

“We're looking at 4G instead of 3G, so we're going to be about two years ahead of the cellular carriers,” White said

“We should still outperform other broadband systems by two to three times,” Bobier said. “They're subject to the same laws of physics that we are; we're just starting from a better footprint.”

".... 4G network system expected to be available December 2008...."

"All those big companies that have made a buying decision — like Sprint spending $3 billion on WiMAX — will change their minds once they see this.”

Aug 2010: Mooohahahaha 1... Asymptote

I was surprised to read that xMax's data rate may eventually reach 6 Mb/s...this is more than an order of magnitude less than 4G speeds..

Mooohahahah 2, Sprint launches 4G :

Recent Trades

Because I can't answer people over at iii.co.uk (I'm banned) I'll answer here.

The recent trades that have gone through are most likely the result of their broker Allenby sending out a report on the company. Reminds me of when Hitchens (another company around xG that went bust) used to send out reports. I hope these new buyers realise that the company, as well as abandoning their only key selling point - the incredible modulation, could possibly have their newMax "frequency agile" system ruined by FCC regulations too.

Fools and their money are soon parted.

Edit: I've had a chance to read it. My thoughts:

There's some fascinating things in the report, which overall strikes me as conservatively written. But as ever the devil's in the detail. What it doesn't say is infinitely more important than what it does.

It mentions the checkered history, but doesn't mention the early promise of a revolutionary 'incredible' modulation scheme. It was only on the strength of this 'impossible' scheme that the company was valued at $1.5Bn. Allenby never mention that this has been dropped, or that the offering has changed at all. This is deceitful.

Allenby never mention docket 03-201 which could pull the rug out from under xG's plans to use unlicensed spectrum in the way xG want to. They do mention that the most valuable thing about xG's current technology is the ability to use this spectrum - but not that this 'most valuable' thing could be taken away in a ruling coming shortly.

Fascinatingly the do acknowledge that Bohman has only put in $6m of the original $375m that was originally claimed, and that the 'revenues' booked are just orders from Treco, not payment. (As we suspected..)

They acknowledge the lost orders with Telefonica, Gama, National Grid and Townes, but not that the reason Townes was lost was because Mr Townes did his homework and called Rick 'a crook.' And the other companies found nothing to be excited about.

They never mention Far Reach, and how Okey found out they were a scam. How they didn't even have a clue about pricing. How the network that they and Okey built was average modulation with average performance.

They mention that the interference beating qualities may not be all that xG claim. But they don't mention that the wavelet pass filter, the 'key to xMax' according to Bobier, is no longer included in xMax. The don't mention the hilarious "military grade jamming" of their demo a few years back.

They don't mention xMax's original demo on the Florida flats could've been made by any number of modulation methods. It wasn't special - as they claimed.

They don't mention Phil Karn, and Prof Friedlander's demolition of their original claims.

They don't mention that this original tech has been changed to something standard. Something boring.

They don't mention that Rick and Roger are raping the company of $70k a month for 'services'.

They don't mention how many previous nomads xG have lost.

They mention their 'phone. But don't mention the previous handset, that was meant to have been delivered by the 'hundreds' to xG's HQ. Where are these 'phones?

They don't mention the lie of the $57m 'pre-orders', that never existed.

They don't mention the 2006 'strong demand' lie that had forced xG to up their partnership fees with those non-existent orders.

They never mention ACH Securities. Not once. Funny since a director used to work for them. They never mention how this company lapped their share price all the was from $5 to $18. They never mention the unregulated stock promoters Marc Dannenberg and Fredrik Wahlman, paid in shares by xG.

They never mention that Dannenberg was selling directors restricted stock whilst they were under lock-up. For half the market rate.

They never mention the same director Palmi Sigmarsson openly shorting his own company when he knew the first tech wouldn't work.

They never mention the ongoing court cases. How Richard Kromka, former xG Director,  found both Bohman and Mooers to be mad and unstable. How Mooers wanted to 'kill himself every day'.

The Figures presented look OK-ish. I'd love to compare them with xG's own reports and see any discrepancies :-) They show a cash-burn of $6m a year, and the only income is from Bohman.

They mention the management. But certain details are omitted. For example iDigi, for some mysterious reason, never shows on Rick, Rogers, or Joe's CV! Is it because they were sued for fraud at iDigi? Is it because they want to keep this from potential investors?

The whole iDigi thing, the: Boiler room, $33m lost, Mooers lying on the balance sheet, technical incompetence, faked demos, FBI investigation thing is just not there. Why is this? Shouldn't investors be told?

Palmi Sigmarsson (who had his broking company closed by the finance inspectorate, and sold restricted xG stock) never appears. James Woodyatt (who is hunted by the Swiss police, and was a senior man in a Bernie Maddoff feeder fund Optimal) never appears. Mrs Bohman never appears. Why is this?

I'll email Allenby and ask for comment.

Docket 03-201

The FCC are considering 'Spectrum Etiquette' regulations that would severely degrade xG's proposals to use the 902-928 Mhz band. Docket 03-201 is supported by Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) and others. In their webpage they state:

"[spectrum etiquette] may promote more efficient spectrum utilization by reducing interference between different license-free and licensed operators and should be considered for newly-certified devices"

Big Problem for xG. Big BIG problem. They via their lawyer plead (see addendum):

xG is concerned that adoption of the spectrum etiquette proposal, in its present form, will have an adverse effect on the deployment of its xMax technology.

xMax employs what can best be described as frequency agility. In the 902-928 MHz band in
which xMax operates, the band is divided into 18 discrete channels. When potential interference is detected on a channel on which the xMax device is operating, due to the presence of another low power device in close proximity operating in the 902-928 MHz band, the xMax device is capable, in milliseconds, of jumping to one of the other 18 channels, hence the term "frequency agility." The likelihood of encountering other devices operating on all 18 channels in a mobile environment at the same time is probably close to zero statistically. Thus, xMax has been designed to greatly minimize, if not eliminate entirely, the prospect of causing interference to other users of the 902-928 MHz band.

There is accordingly no need for a duty cycle, insofar as xMax is concerned, to allow other users access to the unlicensed 900 MHz band, despite the fact that xMax is designed to operate
continuously.

While adoption of the spectrum etiquette proposal would not be fatal to the deployment of the
xMax technology, it would require extensive redesign and development with the attendant additional costs, further delays in deploying the technology and reduction in system capacity.

If docket 03-201 is adopted, can you see Bohman putting his hand in his pocket to pay for 'extensive redesign and development'? Especially now that he's made Rick cough up some of his own cash, and now that Rick is passing the hat round for $10m? Me neither.

If docket 03-201 is adopted then newMax is dead.

Its father, xMax, died a few years ago. For the technically minded it's instructive to compare the system outlines in the FCC link above with the one xG made to the FCC back in 2003. They are two very different systems. Funny. I missed the stock-market announcement about the change...

NewMax Vs xMax

There's an interesting post over at Brough Turner's Blog HERE. He's an acknowledged radio expert who seems to know his stuff. Back in 2006 he had much the same conclusions as Phil Karn that to work as they then claimed xMax would have to violate physical laws, and/or FCC regulations. Then the claims were of 10,000 times less power than other systems for the same data-rate, cities covered with 4 basestations, and networks run on watch batteries. It was madness. To make matters worse the company was promising an imminent launch of this impossible system: The R&D is over said Mooers in March 2006 "We’re at the commercialization and product stage now." The launch was promised before the end of 2006, with 4G networks coming shortly after. Well, that went well.

This obviously made them a laughing stock and exposed the ridiculous lack of knowledge (like the Shannon Bound) of basic communications theory of the inventor Joe Bobier, and the psychotic optimism of Arsehole Rick Mooers. The fact that xG were touting for investors to buy shares in an invention that couldn't possibly work was fraud pure and simple. And they could never claim they were ignorant of this: Karn told them, I told them, it was all over the Internet.

Then, somehow, Joe seemed to have been introduced to the real world. This culminated in the FCC certification of BSN250. This was a basestation that seemed to use perfectly ordinary modulation methods. Nothing spectacular. Nothing unusual. Boring, but it would at least work.

The problem with that is twofold
1) Investors were promised a Ferrari, xG unveiled a bog standard hatchback. It was the most outrageous misrepresentation.
2) Nobody thought of telling the stockmarket that xG's only product had changed 180 degrees in violation of many stockmarket regulations.

To xG's credit they have used this conventional radio modulation system to make a network. Gone was the Wavelet Pass Filter which Bobier and Schwartz had claimed was the "key to xMax", which meant that interference was 'eliminated' (unless you were conducting a xMax demo obviously), and in was a conventional system that switches frequency many times a second.

In July 2010 Brough actually went to visit Joe to see the system. As we imagined the modulation was standard, and running at 2G speeds, not the 4G promised four years ago. There's nothing special. Most fascinating for me though is an entry in the comments:

Brough

Thanks for the fair overview of where xG is today. It did take a reinvention of the company to move into our new direction of offering carrier class cognitive radios. Hopefully we can get this technology into the standards at some point.

Rick Rotondo
VP Marketing
xG Technology

That, to me is incredible. He's admitted the bait and switch - The 'reinvention'. He's as good as said what they have now is a standard modulation, not the amazing low power/high data rate modulation they were flogging initially. The system around it may be cute, but there are many other cute systems out there.

I'll email Mr Rotondo to comment here. I wonder if he will.

Edit: Surprise! No news from Mr Rotondo. There's another blog over at 4G Wireless Evolution that mentions xG. Carl Ford says:

The chip makers for WiMAX are all finding their way into LTE - mostly through Time Division over Frequency Division, which according to our friends at xG Technology, is a secret sauce that will allow beam forming and cognitive radio to live in noisy spectrum.

TMDA and FDMA (Time and Frequency Division Multiple Access) are fairly common among modern radio systems. The 'Key to xMax' - the wavelet pass filter - is gone. The incredible modulation is gone. And so is the $1.5Bn valuation.

Don't look at the man behind the curtain. Move along, nothing to see here.