WIRELESS NATION(“无线”国度)

IRFLFSSNATION is two fascinating　stories in one: It's the sensational account of the entre-　preneurs and corporate barons who built America'swireless industry, and an insider's perspective on the　greatest government boondoggle of our time.　Written by industry insider James B. Murray, Jr.,　Wireless Nation details how the genesis of the　cell phone business became the biggest federal give-　away since the Oklahoma Land Rush-and　the most misguided one in history. From 1985
on, the U.S. government essentially ran a casino,　awarding invaluable spectrum licenses-the coveted　 permits needed to run cell phone systems- via lottery.
Anyone could win, regardless of whether they'd everrun a business, or even seen a cell phone. Hucksters peddled applications to anyone who would buy, and　all over America random golddiggers and sincere hopefuls tried their luck. When the lottery drum stopped twirling, truckdrivers, nurses, deep-sea divers and preachers suddenly found themselves newly minted cell phone entrepreneurs.

Book Description
Wireless Nation is two stories in one: it's the first definitive account of how the American cell phone industry evolved, and it's the inside story of the greatest government boondoggle in American history.

Written by industry insider James B. Murray, Jr., Wireless Nation details the biggest, most misguided federal giveaway since the Oklahoma Land Rush. In the 1980s, the U.S. government handed out exclusive licenses to run new cell phone systems across the country. At first, the bureaucrats tried to distribute these licenses to qualified recipients, requiring companies to prove they could build and run a cell phone system. But then they changed the rules, leading to comically disastrous results.

From 1985 on, the government essentially ran a casino, awarding these invaluable licenses by lottery. Anyone could win, regardless of whether they'd ever run a business - or even seen a cell phone - before. Hucksters peddled applications to anyone who would buy, and all over America random people decided to try their luck. When the lottery drum stopped twirling, truck drivers, nurses, deep-sea divers and preachers suddenly found themselves newly minted cell phone entrepreneurs. Trouble was, they had no idea how to run a business.

Many of the random winners ended up selling their licenses to true operators - companies like McCaw Cellular, Metromedia, and the Bell phone companies, which were forced to scramble around doling out cash for these "free" licenses. The scattering of licenses among hundreds of lottery winners delayed the industry's development, and the giveaway robbed U.S. taxpayers of the billions of dollars that auctioning off the licenses would have brought.

Wireless Nation is the colorful, engaging account of the American cell phone industry's strange history. Despite the government's ham-handed policies, the wireless industry has flourished, forever changing the nature of communications in the U.S. Wireless Nation is the first book to tell the whole story of the hottest industry of the last two decades.

Amazon.com
It may be hard to remember now, but until just a few years ago only an elite few could even hope to obtain a mobile phone--and the service they got, if they were fortunate enough to get any, was both technically mediocre and inordinately expensive.

That all changed in the 1980s, of course, when cellular technology began moving from experimental to ubiquitous and those clunky early car phones went the way of the Model T and telephone operator. The subsequent rush to wireless has been one of the most dynamic business stories of our time, and James B. Murray Jr. does a fine job of running it down and sorting it out in Wireless Nation.

The negotiator of some of the industry's biggest deals as chairman and managing director of Columbia Capital, Murray has had firsthand access to most of the major players in the ongoing saga, and his book benefits tremendously from the insider's perspective that these connections helped forge. It also benefits from his novelist's eye, which virtually puts readers into the center of the action with big-time participants like McCaw Cellular's Craig McCaw as well as "regular folks" like a middle-aged truck driver named Bob Pelissier who snagged one of the country's first cellular licenses.

Moving effortlessly from Newfoundland to New York and Washington state to Washington, D.C., Murray deftly chronicles the emergence of the cell phone as a worldwide business and societal phenomenon. He also offers informed speculation on its future, as emergent wireless Internet connections promise to make current technology and consumer penetration look as quaint as a black dial telephone.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　--Howard Rothman

From Publishers Weekly
Writing from deep (occasionally too deep) inside the boardroom, Murray who, as chairman and managing director at Columbia Capital, has put together plenty of deals for telecommunications giants like AT&T Wireless and Bell Atlantic charts the rise of the cellular business, for the most part avoiding the canned statements typical of tech histories. In part because he barely offers a snapshot of each man and his company before flashing forward to the next, the book's setting is its most intriguing element. It begins in the early 1980s, when the FCC auctioned the country's cellular phone markets, section by section, to the highest (or, often, simply the most rabid) bidder. Murray treats us to a detailed look at how a ragtag band of media upstarts (and the occasional conglomerate) often risked their futures on a new and mostly unproven technology and established a multibillion dollar industry. While 20/20 hindsight allows us to recognize what a gold mine the cellular business has become, it seemed like anything but a sure thing at the time. Murray's book is most intriguing when he leaves the inner sanctum where the deal making is relayed in detail but without much sense of perspective or drama and shows us how far cellular communications have come (e.g., as recently as 1981, only 24 people in New York could be on their cell phones at one time). Some readers may be disappointed that Murray is more interested in what happened to which company than he is in explaining the societal effects of one of the greatest technological revolutions in history.

From Library Journal
Murray, chair of Columbia Capital, has witnessed firsthand the development of the wireless industry, brokering deals for many of its major players. Here he traces the growth of the wireless nation from the 1980s to the present. Murray opens with the milestone FCC decision to offer licenses to run cell phone systems in the United States. At first the FCC took applications, then from 1985 on held a lottery system where people from all walks of life would have a chance to become a cell phone entrepreneur. According to the author, over the course of the last two decades, the thousands of licenses given away "ended up in the hands of tens of thousands of owners." Yet the year 2000 saw the wireless phone industry in the hands of just "six mammoth carriers," including McCaw Cellular, Metromedia, and Bell Atlantic. Murray introduces readers to the entrepreneurs who achieved success in this industry and also addresses such problems as current warnings about cell phones and brain cancer and the need for more tower sites in the United States. This book, the first to chronicle the history of wireless technology, is highly recommended for both public and academic library collections.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Lucy Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY

From Booklist
No industry has ever seen more explosive growth than that of cellular communications. Fifteen years ago wireless telephones were a novelty. Today nearly 90 million people subscribe to cellular telephone service. Seattle Times technology reporter O. Casey Corr has already chronicled the industry's rise in Money from Thin Air (2000), a profile of Craig McCaw, whom Corr called "the visionary who invented the cell phone." Murray now tracks the history of cellular communication by focusing on how the Federal Communications Commission originally allotted radio frequencies to would-be service providers. He describes the FCC's lottery system for awarding cellular licenses and the "gold rush" atmosphere it created that pitted nurses, truck drivers, and secretaries against giants like McCaw, MCI, and Metromedia. Murray, a venture capitalist specializing in telecommunications, was awarded several licenses himself, and he ended up going into business brokering licenses. His colorful account recognizes that cellular communication is still in its i……

James B. Murray, Jr. was an early investor in and broker of cellular telephone licenses. In his two decades of involvement in wireless, Mr. Murray has done deals with hundreds of industry players, from the biggest carriers down to the "little people" who won licenses in the FCC lotteries. A co-founder of Columbia Capital Corporation, a venture capital firm now managing assets in excess of $1.5 billion, Mr. Murray currently runs Court Square Ventures, a venture capital firm specializing in telecommunications and information technology investments. The father of two children, he lives with his wife of 32 years on a farm near Charlottesville, Virginia.

Foreword
Prologue
PART ONE
1 You Could Be a Winner!
2 At the Starting Gate
3 The Long and Wireless Road
4 The Players
5 The Rounds and the Fury
6 The Wheeling and Dealing Begins
7 The Boys' Club
8 Le Grand Deal
9 The Big Monopoly Game
10 The Exodus Begins
PART TWO
11　The Truck Driver Transforms
12　Take the Money and Run
13　The Rush Is On
14　Pig Farmers and Hairdressers
15　A Hustle Here, a Hustle There
16　Mortgaging the House of Cards
17 Catching the Third Wave
18 Last Call at the Casino
PART THREE
19 The Nationwide Footprint
20 The Next Big Thing
21 Going, Going, Gone
22 Everybody's Got One
23 After the Gold Rush
24 Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Index