Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Wednesday 14 January 2009, 6:13 PM
xG update - 2009 starts with silence
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.
PreviousComments on this post
Great piece, as usual!
Hey, you just helped me figure out xG's business model. Create irresistible curiosity in the telecom world with vague press releases that promise the world a paradigm shift in wireless communications. Do not release ANY other information publicly, not even white papers, test results, etc. Emphasize the importance of utter secrecy due to the unprecedented value of this revolutionary new technology. Require a NDA from anyone wanting more, even journalists looking for general information. When you eventually do snag one foolish enough to sign, tell him nothing important but carefully watch every word he says from then on. If anything even remotely similar to what you told him appears in print, sue the hell out of him for violating the NDA.
The one possible flaw in this model is that NDAs are probably unenforceable with respect to information that could be evidence of a crime, such as fraud. But I'm not a lawyer...
"Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise"
Hey, that's MY line! Actually, my version is "Any sufficiently advanced communication scheme is indistinguishable from noise", but that's close enough. I'll gonna sue! :-)
This "company" and its supporters are hilarious and great fun. Of course nothing will ever happen with this tech but it's great entertainment. I just feel sorry for the people who invested in this and didn't manage to get out/understood what this really is.....
This comment has been deleted at the users request
Pretty funny. For the last couple months the few supporters left on the various message boards discussing this company have done nothing but scream obscenities at the critics.
The parallels between this company and myriad perpetual motion machine schemes are staggering.
This comment has been deleted at the users request
Hi, Phil
Ah, well... it struck me one day that SETI was probably doomed - apart from an initial stage where radio transmissions are extremely powerful and omnidirectional, every technological advance has been in doing more with less power, more efficient modulation schemes and better targeting of energy. The end point, which we're approaching remarkably quickly even by human standards, let alone in cosmological terms, will be one where the least possible amount of energy is used to transmit the highest quantity of data to the most precisely targeted receivers - and to anyone outside that system, the communication will be undetectable. You may spot a small hump in background noise energy across a very broad spectrum, if you're looking very closely.
Then there's the 'random noise is incompressible' and 'the most efficient compression scheme produces incompressible results' pair of ideas which leads, via Arthur Clarke, to my tagline... which I now see you have stolen wholesale!
See you in court :)
R
