Hey Charles, based from my experience, any company who signed for a field trial will have to sign an agreement to purchase or license the technology after a successfull trial but both parties cannot disclose any info until the result is finalized. This is done inorder to protect the interest of both parties.
There are even trials wherein the customer is the one paying for everything i.e. equipments, LAB rental and even travel costs for the engineers whether it becomes a successfull trial or not.
Sometimes Purchase Order is already been issued even before the field trial has started. This is done to determine whether conducting a field trial is feasible for both parties or not and once the trial is done but during this occassion a downpayment is requied and that conducting the field trial is just a formality.
On every field trial, before it was agreed and signed, both parties discussed and planned the sites, equipments to use, resources allocation, funding, licensing agreements, and most importantly, there are series of technical discussion even to a point that there will be whiteboard debates amongst engineers of both parties, this is normal because all issues has to be raised and taken ownership because the customer does not just agree on this for nothing.
In regards to the phones, I know you know the answer on that and you even know how it looked like right?
Peace !!!