George Tronsrue, Monet Mobile Networks

“It's easy to follow but hard to lead,” George Tronsrue said. “I much prefer to lead.”

After more than a decade at the vanguard of wireline services, Tronsrue is now on the front lines of wireless. With his latest venture, Seattle-based Monet Mobile Networks, he's leading the American deployment of 3G.

In October 2001, the company launched its CDMA 1XRTT network, offering high-speed data services via wireless PC card modem to customers in Sioux Falls, S.D.

That's right, city slicker. South Dakota landed 3G before you did.

It's not such a stretch — Sioux Falls boasts Internet penetration rates comparable to New York City. “The licenses were available to us, and when we considered the demographics from an economic and educational standpoint, we liked what we saw,” said Tronsrue, Monet's chairman and CEO. “And to borrow a page from Sun Tzu and ‘The Art of War,’ ‘Go where the open space is.’”

Tronsrue arrived at Monet (formerly Burst Wireless) in January 2000. After getting his start at MCI in 1983, four years later he joined Bell company antagonist Royce Holland's fledgling MFS Communications, which was followed in 1994 by a three-year stint as an original member of e.spire Communications' executive staff. From 1997 to 1999, Tronsrue set up shop at Nextlink (now XO) Communications, where as president and chief operating officer he spearheaded the company's move into the international market and led the evolution of its broadband services. “I like doing new things,” he said. “Monet was an opportunity to get out there and do something no one else was doing.”

Monet is now gearing up to launch more advanced 1X EV DO services in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin by the end of 2002. “We will be one of the first, if not the first, to launch EV DO,” Tronsrue said. And as always, leading the pack means everything: “I don't like to fail, and I haven't so far.”