Honoring Pioneers at the 2025 Wireless Hall of Fame Induction

Full Transcript

Don Kellogg 0m10s

Hello, and welcome to the two hundred and sixty fourth episode of the week with Roger, a conversation between analysts about all things telecom,

Roger Entner 0m16s

media, and technology by Recon Analytics. I'm Don Kellogg, and with me this week is my esteemed colleague, Jake Hockridge. Jake, how

Guest Speaker 0m23s

are doing? I'm doing well. Happy to be on.

Roger Entner 0m26s

So Roger, unfortunately, can't join us this week. He's dealing with some unfortunate family issues, but he should be back shortly, and we wish him all the best. In the meantime, Jake, I thought we could talk a little bit about the wireless hall of fame induction ceremony and dinner you went to recently. Do you wanna start us off and tell us a little bit about what is the wireless Hall of Fame? And then, you know, tell us about this event and and who was inducted.

Guest Speaker 0m49s

Yeah. Absolutely. The Wireless Hall of Fame is, you know, what it sounds like. It's put together by the Wireless History Foundation, which is a nonprofit that's focused on basically preserving and promoting the history of wireless in The United States and around the world. They have a hall of fame that they started twenty five years ago, and each year, they induct five new people.

Guest Speaker 1m13s

And Recon Analytics sponsors the event. So Roger and I were down in DC on Monday of this week for the event. It was great.

Roger Entner 1m22s

So Jake, at the dinner, tell us, uh, who was inducted this year.

Guest Speaker 1m25s

Yeah. Of course. So there were five people. It was Ken Horowitz, Jesse Russell, Elizabeth Sachs, Tom Stroup, and Neville Ray, all of whom had long careers, have had long careers starting in like the seventies and eighties, and some of which are still active today. Right?

Guest Speaker 1m43s

And I'll say, you know, a little bit about each one of them, and, you know, we can we can dive in. So Ken Horowitz started off in the the paging business in Upstate New York and was, you know, an entrepreneur there, landed licenses for the Olympics up in Lake Placid, and then, you know, went into cellular in the early days and kind of worked on spectrum lotteries and still invests in, you know, kind of modern wireless technology, but was really an innovator in the paging space all the way back to the seventies. Jesse Russell is a, you know, really interesting and and kind of powerful figure. The African American guy from Tennessee and became an engineer at Bell Labs and ended up leading engineering teams who were really innovative in the wireless space, including, you know, kind of coming up with the idea for the wireless base station. And he gave a really kind of powerful acceptance speech about how wireless democratizes the access to data and allows kids like him who grew up with very little means in rural areas, it affords them opportunities, right, and allows them to connect to the broader world.

Guest Speaker 2m58s

A big part of what he's interested in now is making sure that kids like him have the opportunities that he had. You know, it was a really interesting speech there. And then Elizabeth Sachs is a lawyer, and she works on regulatory policy, especially around SMR and cellular spectrum reform. You know, she's behind the scenes from a lot of what we see in the industry, but has had a really powerful career in in shaping regulatory policy in the in the space. And then Tom Stroup, who is a spectrum policy advocate.

Guest Speaker 3m33s

He led Telecator and then PCIA and, you know, is a big advocate for satellite integration in the space. And then last but certainly not least is Neville Ray, who is T Mobile's CTO and really has led their network development from two g to where it is today and, you know, is a really powerful advocate and has, you know, built a really impressive network at T Mobile from where they started. And, you know, I think he's could be credited with a lot of the success that they're seeing today with where he's gotten their network.

Roger Entner 4m11s

Neville's been around forever. But my first job in wireless about twenty years ago was working at a startup called Telethia doing network drive test data, and our our end clients were Neville Ray and Grant Castle. You know, Neville often, when you talk about vendors, will say will talk about needing one one throat to choke. And he choked our throats a couple times, But, you know, he's he's been a mainstay of T Mobile's network all the way going back to the Robert Godson days. And I think, you know, particularly when we think about T Mobile's network today and and how it's gotten there through multiple network integrations, you know, the the Sprint purchase, even the Metro PCS purchase before that.

Roger Entner 4m50s

And now The US cellular purchase, you know, he's managed through so much change both in terms of generations, mergers and integrations, major spectrum purchases. I I know you probably wanted to say a little bit about his layer cake strategy Yeah.

Guest Speaker 5m4s

As well. I was gonna go into the layer cakes, right, where, you know, he was a big advocate for them, you know, purchasing low band spectrum to roll out what he calls the five g layer cake, right, where you have low band, mid band, and millimeter wave spectrum to basically account for all use cases and geographies. You know, going from where they were as kind of a clear fourth in terms of network performance in The US to now where, like, you could argue they have, you know, at least one of the best networks in the country, and they're really competing for having the best. And, you know, all of the innovation that they've done with the standalone core, the five g standalone core, and, you know, with the integration of satellite into their network, It's really impressive, the work that he's done there.

Roger Entner 5m57s

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I, you know, I think as he rides off into the sunset or I I think he's he's already rode off into the sunset, but, you know, he certainly has left T Mobile in such a different place. I remember when we were first doing the network testing, it was almost like you drive away from where where you could see buildings in the city and you lose coverage type thing on T Mobile. And it's to your point, it's a very competitive network right now, particularly with what they're doing with satellite and slicing and things of that nature.

Roger Entner 6m23s

So definitely well deserved. Neville, if you're listening, couldn't give him enough compliments in terms of kind of where the T Mobile network has ended up today versus I think where he found it.

Guest Speaker 6m34s

Yeah. What was really cool too is T Mobile showed up in force for him at the event. You had John Leger, Mike Sievert, and Srini Kapala all there at the event. Right? So you have this kind of CEOs past, present, and future all in one room to support Neville, as well as, like, 20 more senior figures from T Mobile org there in the room.

Guest Speaker 6m57s

And Mike Sievert did his his introduction. And so it was really a you know, T Mobile had a very strong presence at the event. Neville's this beloved figure, right? And I think people were really kind of gushing about him. Cool and interesting to see and kind of speaks to the culture there coming out of Bellevue.

Roger Entner 7m15s

Yep. Well, it's a moment in history, right? I mean, I think individuals can have such a huge impact in these larger organizations. And Neville is certainly one of those folks that has truly changed the trajectory of T Mobile for the better. So congratulations.

Guest Speaker 7m29s

Yeah.

Roger Entner 7m30s

All right. Well, thanks, Jake, for catching us up. I think next week, we'll probably have Roger back, but I appreciate you patching in for us. And listeners, we'll talk next week.

Guest Speaker 7m38s

Awesome. Yeah. Always happy to join.