Broadband Internet Speed test

An interesting new technology called xMax from xG Technology, LLC promises high bandwidth, low power, long range broadband access that unlike WiFi and WiMAX does not need a dedicated frequency spectrum.

xMax is however not limited to just wireless, it can be used for wired applications too, where it claims improvements to existing DSL and cable installations.

From the xG Technology website:

xGTM Technology, LLC is an innovative research and product development firm that has produced a new low power, long range broadband technology called xMax. xMax is a novel modulation and encoding technology that boosts the range and power efficiency of all wired and wireless communications. xMax is not a compression technique, but rather a synergistic mix of two well-established communication approaches that dramatically improves spectrum utilization.

Read more in the xG Technology FAQ.

Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) aka Powerband is the use of Power Line Communication (PLC) technology to provide broadband Internet access through ordinary power lines.

Broadband over powerlines has been regarded as the “holy grail” by many because it gets around the biggest challenge to broadband providers — building cable infrastructure. Although there are many engineering challenges in providing broadband over power lines, the infrastructure is already built in most countries — including good penetration into rural areas.

BPL can deliver up to 135 Mbps at the application layer, but generally speeds of 256 kbps to 2.7 Mbps are offered to consumers.

There is an IEEE draft standard; IEEE P1901 - Draft Standard for Broadband over Power Line Networks: Medium Access Control and Physical Layer Specifications .

Another competing evolving standard is the HomePlug power alliance which defined the HomePlug 1.0 and the HomePlug AV technologies.
Devolo has an interesting product that uses HomePlug, the MicroLink dLAN Audio.
These specifications are aimed in-home distribution, while the HomePlug BPL is a to-the-home technology.

Testing of this technology is conducted by various ISPs across the globe, and some are even deploying the technology widescale.

According to Business Standard, India:
The government is likely to miss its target of three million broadband users to be acheived by the end of 2005, of which 50% was to be achieved by PSU operators.

Meanwhile, Trai today asked the centre to reconsider its proposal of unbundling the local loop and offer incentives to bring down the costs of the access.

WiMAX is an acronym that stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, a certification mark for products that pass conformity and interoperability tests for the IEEE 802.16 standards.

In plain English, it’s a wireless form of broadband access. It’s got a longer range than Wi-Fi and provides more bandwidth. 802.16 provides up to 50 km of linear service area range and allow for connectivity without direct line-of-sight. In practical terms the range is somewhere between 5 to 8 km. WiMAX is a point-to-multipoint access technology, and while some claim an aggregated data rate of up to 70 Mbps, enough to support some 60 T1-capacity customers, real world tests show that actual connection speed is somewhere between 500 kbps and 2 Mbps per customer.

The advantage over DSL and cable is that obviously no copper wires or cable networks need to exist at the customer site, making it an ideal technology for rural areas.

Read more about WiMAX at the WiMAX Forum.

But only if your neighbor is the telephone exchange.
The top speed of 24 Mbps is only achievable if you live within 300 meters of the exchange, in reality next-door.

But, who needs 24 Mbps anyway? There are lots of providers offering 8 Mbps services, a speed which is good enough for most people.