New modulation scheme ups throughput
MagnaCom, an Israeli digital communications firm, is looking to replace the long-standing quadrature amplitude modulation with its own wave amplitude modulation, designed to increase data throughput while decreasing power consumption.
WAM is an all-digital modulation scheme that is backward compatible with QAM hardware. WAM uses spectral compression that increases signaling rate.
MagnaCom CEO Yossi Cohen was on hand at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, to discuss the company’s advancements.
Cohen told RCR Wireless News that the technology is currently being tested by potential clients for eventual deployment although that benchmark is still a few years down the road.
“We’re going through various testing levels at the customers’ labs,” Cohen said. “That would really be the phase one of the technology incorporation into future products.”
He said the spectral efficiency gained from WAM is an important factor for carriers as the price of spectrum licenses continues to increase.
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“Being able to get maybe 40%, 60% more out of your existing spectrum would be a very significant benefit,” he said.
Cohen touted the company’s “completely different approach to something very fundamental of digital modulation.”
QAM is the protocol that changes the amplitude of carrier waves, which transport digital or analog bit streams.
“We’re essentially challenging a piece of technology that has been considered almost an axiom for over 40 years,” he said.
Cohen declined to identify any MagnaCom customers.