xG update - 2009 starts with silence

It's 2009. Let's have a look at my old pals xG Technology, the Florida-based wireless data company who've been promising incredibly cheap, incredibly high performance mobile phones for a few years now. I drop a note to xG's recently appointed director of communications, asking how things are going. When last we talked, we had agreed to disagree on whether it was worth having lunch: "only if you agree to an NDA", he said. "That's a non dining agreement, then", I thought.

Unfortunately, my chances of getting fed have got no better. His email now bounces with "User not known", and his mobile number goes through to voicemail. I suspect he and xG have parted ways, a suspicion only enhanced by the copious lack of communications from the company itself.

Which is a shame. xG has promised so much for the beginning of 2009 – here's a press release from November last year: "xG Technology, Inc., ("xG" or "the Company"; LSE-AIM: XGT), which is implementing a revolutionary, low-cost mobile communications system, today announced that it will begin with the deployment of its BSN 250 base stations in the southern Florida market in November 2008. The roll-out of the base stations will enable the launch of the xMax mobile VoIP service in these selected territories before the end of the year.

A limited number of fully commercial, production ready, TX60 handsets is now expected to be delivered in December 2008 instead of November 2008 as previously communicated to the market. The change in the time frame is not expected to have a material impact on the Company's strategy for deploying mobile and fixed VoIP and broadband internet services.

The Company anticipates the completion of the integration testing of the TX60 handsets with the BSN 250 base stations to be finalised by the end of December. Once this milestone has been achieved, first orders will be placed with xG's contract manufacturer, so volume deliveries of the TX60 handset will occur a few months after placing the order."

Of course, it's possible that all this has happened and the company hasn't thought it worthy of note. It's possible that despite the apparent lack of FCC approval for the equipment, the lack of any coherent marketing strategy, the lack of demonstrations of working kit and the lack of any interest from the rest of the industry, that xG is poised on the brink of the revolution it has promised for all these years. It's even possible that some of the (unconfirmed) information I've had about the handset design – multiple use of very expensive components to cope with some of xG's more unruly aspects, desperately poor performance nonetheless – is entirely wrong.

Anything's possible. But I think xG fans should, like me, plan on buying their own lunch for a while yet.