AT&T has admitted to the Federal Communications Commission that it struck a deal to prevent mobile VoIP calling on its 3G network. In fact, no cellular carrier in the United States allows VoIP calling across their mobile network. VoIP technology saves consumers money by routing calls over the Internet instead of traditional networks. AT&T responded to the FCC inquiry, arguing that the deal was needed to assure that revenues from its current voice plans would not be reduced by enabling mobile VoIP calling.

According to xG Technology, these revenues are seen as crucial by carriers to support the tremendous cost of deploying and operating traditional cellular networks. “It makes perfect sense,” said Joseph Bobier, chief technology officer of xG Technology, “No U.S. carrier currently allows VoIP across mobile networks. Given the billions of dollars they spent acquiring spectrum, building and deploying their cellular networks, the economics simply wouldn’t work. VoIP saves consumers money, but the flip side of this benefit is that this means less revenue for operators. In fact, the only two major wireless carriers in Europe that allow mobile VoIP traffic added charges that essentially strip out the savings that VoIP delivers.”

“By contrast, xG Technology recognized that Internet based calling—VoIP—will be the technology of the future and we designed our mobile system from the ground up with that in mind.”

By focusing on reducing the cost of the cellular network itself, xG Technology is a company that believes mobile VoIP can provide significant savings to consumers and still be profitable for carriers. The company’s approach has been to develop a network that uses free spectrum instead of the carrier paying billions for licensed spectrum. This translates to lower costs that can be passed onto the consumer.

Seven-year-old xG Technology is a US based company, but development of xMax is an international effort that involves companies in Europe and Asia. A portfolio of 50 US and 124 international patents and pending patent applications has been developed with the goal of bringing lower-cost communications to consumers.