xG sells base stations, options, keeps mum on everything else

It's February, so let's have a quick look back at our old friends in Florida, xG Technology, Inc. -- "the Unphone Company". Who says there's no truth in advertising? -- and see how they're doing in their quest to sell that record-breaking wireless technology of theirs.

There's good news and bad news, bad news about the good news and good news about the bad news.

The good news: xG has sold more base stations to more customers, and has announced its first month's profit! Well done, chaps.

The bad news about the good news: It's not saying who the customers are (but they are in Kansas, South Carolina and other sunny places in that part of the world) or how big the profit is. Nor how it's arrived at - stating a monthly profit is in a quarterly accounting system is like saying how hot your bath will be a third of the way through filling it, before you turn on the cold tap. It doesn't actually mean anything useful.

The bad news: no, xG has still not revealed anything more about its technology, allowed anyone to examine or test it outside NDA, or put anything on sale to the public (except maybe the shares flogged off in the option exercise).

The good news about the bad news: xG says "At xMax, richer, more meaningful communications are what we’re all about", so we can expect richer, more meaningful communications from them. Perhaps about the TX60 mobile phone, of which there is a picture on the site and the barest of details - it does xMax, Wi-Fi and wired Ethernet, is all. Features, software, size, weight, battery life: your guess is as good as mine (and as for coverage - phhhhhh.)

Still, there's a "Where To Buy" link on the xG site: clicking on it reveals that "We're currently working on rolling out the xMax Mobile Phone Service in select areas. As xMax becomes available, we will post updates on this site as well as on xMax.com". The scamps.

And while it may not be good or bad news that someone's exercised a few thousand dollars' worth of options - that Christmas credit card bill won't pay itself - it's an odd thing to do in a company on the brink of full commercialisation and which projects nothing but sunny upside from hereon in.

Perhaps I'll get back to my pals at National Grid Wireless, who are known to be looking at xMax in the UK. That agreement ends next month, after all. They won't tell me anything either, indeed seemed most unhappy to hear from me, but who knows - they may have thawed.

What larks!