George Schmitt, Kris Rinne and Craig Farrill celebrated their induction into the 2013 Wireless Hall of Fame Tuesday at the Fairmont Ballroom in San Jose, CA. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, also inducted, remained in Washington, D.C. for negotiations regarding the federal government shutdown. Photo: Richard Mayer
On Tuesday evening, the Wireless History Foundation inducted four individuals – Senator Mark Warner, FirstNet’s Craig Farrill, Kris Rinne of AT&T and George Schmitt of xG Technology — into the Wireless Hall of Fame on the eve of the CTIA The Wireless Association MobilCON Conference at the San Jose Convention Center. The four join 36 wireless industry pioneers and innovators in the Wireless Hall of Fame, at a celebration attended by 250 industry colleagues from around the country.
Senator Mark Warner (Virginia) was recognized for his early work as Managing Director of Columbia Capital, the first venture capital firm that specialized in serving the wireless industry. Senator Warner was also one of the early investors in FleetCall, the company that became Nextel and later acquired by Sprint. A former Governor of Virginia, Senator Warner was not able to attend due to the negotiations regarding the federal government shutdown, and so Jerry McGowan, attorney for wireless companies and former ambassador to Portugal, accepted the award for the Senator.
Craig Farrill was honored by his 38-year career in the industry including with Communications Industries, one of the first modern wireless companies, as CTO for Vodafone AirTouch, PacTel Corp., and Airtouch Communications. Farrill is a founder of the CDMA Development Group, which is an international industry association furthering digital wireless technology. He is currently a board member for FirstNet, the national emergency responder network, and served as acting general manager during its early phase. In his acceptance speech, Farrill said, "Clearly this industry has transformed the human race . . . [and] there is still a lot this industry can do for the poor, the ill, the unemployed and the underserved in this country."
Kris Rinne, Senior VP Network Technologies for AT&T Labs, was honored as one of the early leaders in deploying GSM technology in the US, and overseeing the company’s HSPA rollout. She began her career with Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems as an engineer, and worked her way up to become a rare female leader among national telecom engineers.
George Schmitt, of xG Technology, was honored for his work as the first US Chair of the GSM Association. Schmitt worked for Pacific Telesis, and built a competitive GSM system for the Mannesmann consortium in Germany, the first network of its kind in the world. As Omnipoint President, Schmitt build the largest PCS network in the nation at the time, and promoted advanced technologies like GMS, GPRS packet data, EDGE, positioning systems and Internet access. As EVP AirTouch, he built the world’s first CDMA network in South Korea.
The Fairmont San Jose Ballroom was filled with past honorees including wireless industry luminaries like Craig McCaw, Lowell McAdam, Dan Mead, Ralph de la Vega, Dan Hesse, Sam Ginn, and Raj Singh, and former government leaders like former WRC Ambassador Brian Fontes, former FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, and Michele Farquhar, former FCC Wireless Bureau Chief during the critical 1996 auction era.
The celebration recognized the 30th anniversary of the launch of cellular communications in the United States. For the event, Mosaik Solutions created an oversized graphic depicting the history of network operator mergers and acquisitions over the past 30 years. The graphic required more than two years of research to depict the consolidation that grew to characterize the wireless industry after the early years when the FCC granted licenses through various techniques: comparative hearings, lotteries and auctions.
The attendees celebrated the significant impact of wireless communications on Americans’ lives, and its trajectory to the current state where, according to CTIA, 102% of Americans own a wireless device(s), there are 326 million subscribers of wireless devices (wireless phones, tablets, and hotspots), and 36% of US households rely solely on wireless devices to connect to the Internet. Annual total wireless revenues are $185 billion, with $30.1 billion in annual incremental capital investment.
The CTIA MobileCON show continues at the San Jose Convention Center from Wednesday through Friday. One of the main themes of the MobileCON conference is how businesses, educational institutions, and the health care industry need to meet the growing demand for wireless services by its users and for efficiencies in their operations.
