Ten on Top

For bridging the gap between GSM and CDMA operators: LOWELL McADAM, CEO OF VERIZON WIRELESS

Just as no other president but Nixon could have normalized relations with China, no other operator could have bridged the ever-widening gap between CDMA and GSM but Verizon Wireless. The largest of the CDMA operators, VZW had to be on board with any decision that would see the CDMA community veer down a new technology path. Ultimately, it was Lowell McAdam, CEO of VZW, who unified the GSM and CDMA camps under a single future technology: long-term evolution (LTE).

His decision wasn't merely symbolic. Within a year of Verizon's announcement to pursue the GSM standard body's 4G evolution path, the dominoes began falling all over the world, with Alltel, Bell Canada, KDDI and Telus among them. As a consequence, development of the CDMA standard body's 4G equivalent, ultra-mobile broadband, has been canceled.

“He stuck his neck out,” said John Celentano, president of research firm Skyline Marketing. “He made a commitment to LTE long before it was commercially available. That's a decision that sets the direction and tone of the industry.”

Of course, saying and doing are two different things, and Verizon has made it clear it's in no hurry to get to 4G. It has said its CDMA 1X EV-DO networks are handling the growing mobile data load just fine. But thanks to the operator, some of the first trials of LTE equipment will take place in the U.S., along with partner Vodafone. And Verizon already has picked out the spectrum on which it will ride, 700 MHz. LTE may still be years away, but Verizon has ensured it has a home among CDMA operators.
— KEVIN FITCHARD

For challenging the industry's basic notions of business models: BEN WOLFF, CEO, & BARRY WEST, CHIEF NETWORK ARCHITECT, OF CLEARWIRE

For more than a year, Barry West has focused on a single mission: turning WiMAX into a mainstream mobile broadband technology, culminating last month with the creation of the new Clearwire. Now he and his new boss, Clearwire CEO Ben Wolff, hold the immediate fate of 4G in the U.S. in their hands. With $3.2 billion in capital and spectrum spanning markets both large and small across the country, they've been given the green light to prove WiMAX's feasibility once and for all. From this point on, it's all about execution, and you can bet the whole world will be watching.

If Clearwire can build out a sizable U.S. footprint and populate its network with broadband subscribers, Wolff and West will have done well for their company. But true success will be measured in mobility. If they can turn the WiMAX network into a truly mobile broadband network supporting any number of embedded laptops and consumer electronics devices, Clearwire will tap into what wireless pundits believe is the future of the industry.

“The timing of 4G in the U.S. largely depends on how Sprint/Clearwire performs,” said Craig Moffett, analyst for Bernstein Research. If Clearwire can make a business case for 4G, it will prompt AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless to move forward with their own LTE plans. If WiMAX just turns out to be another last-mile broadband access technology, then AT&T and Verizon can afford to lean back on their 3G networks for that much longer. No one is arguing that 4G isn't coming. The big question is whether 4G is coming tomorrow or in the next decade.
— KEVIN FITCHARD

For expanding (or trying to) how wireless can be used for broadband: KEVIN MARTIN, CHAIRMAN OF THE FCC

With a new administration moving in this month, Republican-appointed FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is likely headed out. (Although his actual plans weren't known at press time, a resignation is likely.) For better or worse — and on the regulatory front there's always a little of both — Martin's FCC had a major influence over the future of wireless communications.

On the wireless front, Martin is best known for helping auction off huge chunks of wireless spectrum, deals that provide the underpinnings of this nation's future 4G networks. The largest auction, last year's 700 MHz bid, put more than $19.6 billion in the government coffers. By placing open access requirements on the C Block of spectrum, which eventually went to Verizon, Martin set in motion an industry focus on more open networks that had an impact felt far and wide.

“The open platform will help foster innovation on the edge of the network, while creating more choices and greater freedom for consumers to use the wireless devices and applications of their choice,” Martin said at the close of the 700 MHz auction.

Even as his final days ticked away, Martin put wireless issues on the forefront of the FCC docket — yet another sign of how much he wants to leave his mark on the industry. In its November meeting, Martin's FCC approved both the Verizon Wireless acquisition of Alltel and the merger of Clearwire's and Sprint's WiMAX assets — two deals that could substantially recreate the wireless landscape in the U.S. The FCC also adopted rules for governing the use of the “white spaces” between existing broadcast television spectrum for use in offering wireless data services. In its December meeting, the commission was expected to consider making the creation of a tier of free wireless Internet access a condition in the auction of new licensed spectrum in the Advanced Wireless Services band, yet another effort to broaden wireless choices.

Just in his early 40s, it remains to be seen if — and how — Martin will extend his wireless influence. One model may be that of Reed Hundt, the Democrat-appointed former FCC chairman who kept a high profile even after leaving office.
— RICH KARPINSKI

For challenging the traditional wireless vendor hierarchy: HUAWEI

It's easy to write off the Chinese vendors as low-cost challengers — companies that take advantage of the low salaries and cheap manufacturing costs of the Chinese mainland to undercut their established Western counterparts. It's true that vendors such as Huawei and ZTE have been highly competitive on price, but that's only half the story. They've used their abundant engineering and R&D resources to innovate as well.

Standard gear such as the remote radio head for UMTS networks came not from Europe, North America, Japan or Korea, but from China. “It's not that the vendors were complacent; it's not that they were raking in the dough,” said Peter Jarich, wireless infrastructure analyst for Current Analysis. “But the emergence of Huawei and ZTE as credible vendors that could compete on products, not just cost, has forced other vendors to compete that much more fiercely.”

Huawei in particular has had success shaking things up. Network wins in emerging markets turned into contracts with big operators, as well as major handset deals. North America, however, proved a difficult market to crack. After a few minor wins among Tier 2 operators, Huawei got into a bidding war with Nokia Siemens Networks and Ericsson for T-Mobile's 3G rollout, which ultimately went to the Europeans. This fall, however, it finally broke the barrier, landing a contract with Telus and Bell Canada to build a high-speed packet access overlay — and eventually LTE. North America now seems prime hunting grounds for the insurgent vendor.
— KEVIN FITCHARD

For taking the complexity out of mobile data: STEVE JOBS, CEO OF APPLE

The iPhone, brainchild of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, has been the catalyst for most of the biggest trends in wireless this year and last. Following the introduction of the game-changing handset in June 2007 — and accelerated by the iPhone 3G launched one year later — there has been a string of wannabes, an explosion of applications and, most significantly, an entirely new view of mobile data. With the iPhone, Jobs took the complexity of mobile data and made a once impossible task as simple as touching the screen.

Mobile browsing was once based on wireless application protocol sites — clunky snapshots of the Web that made browsing near impossible. Then came the iPhone with its browser based on Safari, the desktop browser that Apple built from Webkit, an open-source browser package that also powers Google's Android browser. The first iPhone showed how a capable browser could emulate the desktop, and the second release showed how 3G could add speed to the equation.

With more than 95% of iPhone users now regularly surfing the Web, the mobile Internet has clearly become table stakes. Every carrier and handset manufacturer is placing bets on data to drive revenue and show consumers that simplicity and speed can be one and the same. Jobs used the iPhone to pave this path — not to mention finagle a five-year exclusive deal with AT&T — introducing a slew of features and essentially turning the wireless industry on its head.
— SARAH REEDY

For bringing mobile e-mail to the masses: JIM BALSILLIE & MIKE LAZARIDIS, CO-CEOS OF RESEARCH IN MOTION

Research In Motion has long dominated the enterprise with its line of BlackBerry handsets. Yet this year the handset-maker found its way into millions of consumer pockets as well. With a slew of new handsets, multimedia services and applications, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, co-CEOs of RIM, are blurring the line between the mobile enterprise user and the consumer. As Apple taunted RIM in the enterprise space with its business-friendly 3G iPhone, RIM struck back and made the BlackBerry one of the most successful crossover smartphone lines in the market.

RIM announced in late September that it had added around 2.6 million net new subscribers in the second quarter of 2008, bringing the total BlackBerry user base to 19 million. Of those, nearly 60% were consumers. To date, approximately 42% of RIM's total subscriber base comes from non-enterprise users.

“They've made great strides in industrial design, making the devices look better and really embracing media, which has become a requirement for modern consumer handsets,” said Ross Rubin, wireless and consumer technology analyst for the NDP Group.

In addition to new consumer-facing handsets — including the BlackBerry Pearl Flip and the BlackBerry Storm — RIM also introduced a series of consumer-oriented apps in 2008. It currently supports five major instant-messaging services, music, MobiTV video, photo sync capabilities, and social-networking apps from Facebook and MySpace — the latter had 400,000 downloads in its first week, an all-time high for both MySpace and RIM.

Balsillie and Lazaridis took a risk in straying from their expertise and testing the consumer waters. Luckily, its smartphone line so far has lived up to its “CrackBerry” nickname, proving just as addictive to consumers as they were to the enterprise market.
— SARAH REEDY

For opening up the mobile OS: GOOGLE

Google's influence on the wireless future has been both tangible — the release of the Android-based G1 phone for T-Mobile — and intangible — pushing for open access, Net neutrality, and more widely available and affordable wireless Internet services. Even as the Web ad market suffers from the economic downturn and Google's stock price sits well off its highs, look for Google to continue to keep telecom, and in particular wireless opportunities, high on its priority list. It's that important to the search giant's future.

After years of speculation, 2008 turned out to be the year Google finally made its presence felt in the wireless market. It may have come up empty in the 700 MHz spectrum bid, but its push for an open-access tier changed the agenda for wireless operators and service providers. Gone are the days of the closed carrier deck; open applications and mobile Web access now rule the day, from the iPhone to the just-released Nokia N97 to Google's own Android-based devices.

Leading Google's Android charge is Andy Rubin, founder of Danger Inc. (the birthplace of the technology that became the T-Mobile Sidekick), who represents a rare face that we can attach to Google's telecom ambitions. By releasing Android as open source and positioning the Android App Store as a more open alternative to the iPhone ecosystem, Rubin has set up an intriguing device and apps battle, one that harkens back to the equally high-stakes desktop days of Windows vs. Mac (as odd as it may seem placing Google in the Microsoft role).

What's next for Google? Don't short-sell its recent white spaces victory at the FCC. There's a lot of work to be done to turn that spectrum into a usable solution for cheap broadband wireless access, but none other than ISP pioneer Tom Evslin recently declared that white-space data services coupled with open mobile devices would make “toast” of LTE and WiMAX. An optimistic vision, to be sure, but one that is necessary to fuel Google's ultimate mobile ambitions, which CEO Eric Schmidt, laid out plainly last year: “We can make more in mobile than desktop [advertising] eventually.”
— RICH KARPINSKI

For extending the social network to the mobile space: FACEBOOK & MYSPACE

When online social-networking giants Facebook and MySpace came on the scene, industry observers were quick to label them a passing fad. When they made the jump to mobile users, many were still skeptical. Yet today 54 million consumers are proving the skeptics wrong. Social networking, led by these pioneers, has had an enormous impact on the mobile space, attracting users of all ages from all regions and encouraging hundreds of start-ups to try their hand at the social-networking craze as well.

MySpace Mobile has grown from its first launch with Helio to include 32 carrier deals in more than 20 countries, attracting more than 12 million monthly mobile users. And this accounts for only 10% of MySpace's total traffic — a number that is growing as the functionality does, said John Faith, general manager and vice president of mobile for MySpace. Likewise, Facebook Mobile is translated into 35 languages and recently surpassed MySpace with 16 million monthly active mobile users, said Henri Moissinac, director of Facebook Mobile.

“Up until now, a lot of people have been saying mobile was only for early adopters, the young generation or business users,” Moissinac said. “The impact of companies like us and other players in the space is to take these users and the presence of mobile in people's lives to regular consumers.”

While other mobile social networks have yet to see the same success as the big two, Facebook and MySpace have many excited. Mobile networks are prime candidates for advertising, location-enabled functions, video and a wide range of apps. They shape calling plans, dictate handset design and drive mobile data usage, making every carrier eager to get social.

“Carriers want to be associated with Facebook and MySpace because of the attraction the younger demographic has with these names,” said Windsor Holden, principal analyst for Juniper Research. “To have that on their portal is seen as an additional means of attracting new customers and retaining customers. Clearly, the key strength above and beyond the social networks is the strength of the brand.”
— SARAH REEDY

For standing firm with LTE while the world freaked out over WiMAX: HÅKAN ERIKSSON, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FOR ERICSSON

Håkan Eriksson may seem like an odd person to make this list — the CTO of Ericsson isn't exactly a household name in the North American wireless industry. But over the last year, he's provided the counterpoint argument to WiMAX. When Sprint announced plans to deploy WiMAX in 2007, it kicked up a dust storm. Suddenly everyone had to have a 4G strategy, and unless carriers were willing to take a major leap of faith like Sprint, there didn't appear to be too many immediate options. As Sprint's Barry West traveled the world evangelizing WiMAX, Eriksson was right behind him defusing the paranoia in his wake and assuring carriers that GSM's stalwart standards body, the 3GPP, and LTE vendors had their backs.

While any vendor CTO could have taken on the role of LTE advocate, no one could do it with the credibility and zeal of Eriksson, as Ericsson was the only major vendor that didn't develop a WiMAX product line. “LTE needed a spokesperson,” said Current Analysis' Jarich. “Eriksson could go to the carrier community and say, ‘We're the only ones not making WiMAX because we don't think there is any money in it.’”

As a result, carriers began announcing their LTE intentions around the world, blunting the global impact of WiMAX. Ultimately, one man didn't convince the global carrier community to adopt LTE, but Eriksson's contributions to LTE's ascension shouldn't be underestimated. Hype over the next big technology dominates this industry. Defusing that hype can sometimes be just as effective as generating it.
— KEVIN FITCHARD

For reviving the LBS market: PHONE NAVIGATION COMPANIES

In the past, location-based services weren't making headlines outside of personal navigation devices and family-tracking services. This all changed when a few market leaders broke open the industry this year. Propelled by Networks in Motion and TeleNav, maps suddenly are being added to everything, seamlessly incorporating location with multimedia and mobile Internet applications.

This location-aware culture was jump-started by a string of GPS-enabled handsets, including Apple's iPhone 3G, Nokia's Navteq acquisition, and smartphones with large screens and intuitive user interfaces. Marketing programs from most major carriers further drove awareness, resulting in impressive growth in 2008, said H.P. Jin, CEO of TeleNav.

“Before it was a lot of hype, but this year mass adoption is really happening,” Jin said, adding that even a financial slowdown has not stymied LBS growth.

Ovum forecasts the market for GPS-enabled devices to grow from 163.9 million shipments in 2007 to 572 million in 2012. But the real growth has come in the number of GPS-enabled apps and services, including social networks, weather, gaming and search. Geotagging, the ability to add geographical identification metadata to media, was one of the hottest features in 2008, said Dominique Bonte, principal analyst for ABI Research. Every solution, app or handset now supports it, he said.

For next year, many are banking on location-based ads to redefine mobile usage, but 2008 will be remembered as the year navigation companies restored faith in a sector many had written off.
— SARAH REEDY