A young company out of Santa Ana, Calif., proclaims its antenna technology increases the range for wireless devices 50 percent to 100 percent and eliminates digital interference with hearing aids and pacemakers.
RangeStar Inc. spent several years in research, developing and testing its antenna technology, for which it already has received one and expects two more U.S. patents, said company President Bill Luxon. Unlike a standard antenna, RangeStar’s antenna must be custom designed to fit varying phone models.
Luxon said the new technology is effective at all frequencies, and will be fitted for cellular and personal communications services phones. RangeStar’s technology increases a phone’s received signal strength indicator, or RSSI, by more than 100 percent, or 7.34 dB, over standard antenna equipped cellular devices, said the company.
For customers, extended range means fewer dropped calls, clearer reception and as many as 50 additional minutes of talk time from one battery charge, added Luxon.
While the company’s range capabilities could save users money, improve communications quality and reduce carrier churn, RangeStar’s ability to eliminate interference responds to a major industry concern. To date, most efforts to reduce and eliminate interference from digital phones has focused on the handsets themselves. Luxon said RangeStar attacked the issue from a different angle, literally. In the field where a standard handset antenna’s radio frequency emissions are aimed at the head, RangeStar has redirected that energy outward, opposite the head and body. The University of Oklahoma Center for the Study of Wireless Electromagnetic Compatibility reported RangeStar’s antenna technology eliminates interference with hearing aids and pacemakers, said the company.
Luxon expects demand for RangeStar antennas will ensue at all points of the distribution chain: manufacturers, carriers and antenna companies. Companies first-to-market at each level stand to gain a competitive advantage. Luxon said he hopes carriers will drive manufacturers to build phones using RangeStar’s antennas and that the technology evolves to an industry standard. A number of manufacturers currently are evaluating RangeStar’s product, however the company has not yet signed any contracts. The antennas RangeStar builds are small units that fit into the back or side of a handset.
Performance tests administered by Comarco were conducted in various sections of the San Francisco Bay Area, including downtown, off-shore and in wooded areas of Walnut Creek. These and other tests verified RangeStar’s antenna technology can withstand urban, suburban and rural environments, said the company.
RangeStar currently is comprised of about 10 people who are spread between San Jose and Santa Ana, Calif., as well as in Connecticut and New Jersey. Luxon has a long history of transforming ideas into marketable products and services. He has founded several businesses and taken two companies public. John Daniels, RangeStar’s executive vice president, intellectual property rights, is an engineer and a patent attorney, with nine U.S. patents issued in his name. He recently worked for the New York law firm Adams & Wilks. RangeStar’s chief technical officer, Joseph Milelli, comes from Loral Corp., where he was responsible for semiconductor design, engineering and manufacturing operations in the company’s imaging sensors division.
