While many people make a name for themselves by inventing technology that somehow changes the world, James A. Dwyer Jr.’s contribution to the wireless communications industry during the past 40 years is a little more subtle. Instead of earth-shattering technology, Dwyer’s contribution involves both the vision of how wireless technology would change the world and the conviction to see his ideas implemented.
Dwyer is still actively involved in the wireless industry, an industry he helped shape. Today he is president of Fort Myers, Fla.-based Qualicom Inc., a family proprietorship operating in various fields of telecommunications, and is president and managing partner of Wireless One Network in Florida.
In addition to owning and operating several pioneering wireless companies, Dwyer is one of the founders and a former chairman of what was the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, now known as the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association; a member of the Personal Communications Industry Association and its forerunners the National Association of Radio Telephone Systems and Telocator; a member of the American Mobile Telecommunications Association; a member of the Radio Club of America; and a former member of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.
Dwyer’s vision of the wireless industry saw him take what he learned from a pioneering paging company in the 1970s and turn it into one of the first cellular operators in the country, American Cellular Telephone Corp., which began the first commercial cellular service in Indianapolis in 1984.
“Jim is one of the founders of the wireless industry and one of the very few people who has successfully made the transition from small paging and mobile-phone entrepreneur to playing a major ongoing role in the industry,” said Tom Stroup, former president of the PCIA and currently president and chief executive officer of GroupServe.
In addition, Dwyer was instrumental in challenging the Federal Communications Commission in the 1970s to free up spectrum to competition instead of giving it to incumbent monopolies.
“He single-handedly challenged the status quo,” remarked Liz Maxwell, who was with the FCC in the late ’70s before joining CTIA in 1984. Maxwell now is vice president of external affairs at Aeris.net.
Dwyer’s career in the wireless industry began after he finished his military service in 1958 with an entry-level position at Radio Engineering Labs in New York. After more than a decade at R.E.L., Dwyer joined Western Union International Inc., where he became vice president of international relations and eventually developed a subsidiary, Airsignal International, in 1971. As president of Airsignal, Dwyer built the company into the first national paging and mobile-telephone provider with operations in 40 cities and five countries.
By the mid-70s, the FCC wasp preparing to award wireless spectrum. The commission originally awarded half of the spectrum to AT&T, 20 megahertz to Motorola and 20 megahertz to the paging industry. Unhappy with receiving only 20 megahertz, Dwyer petitioned the FCC to give more of AT&T’s share to paging.
“I told them, `Why are you giving a monopoly another monopoly?” Dwyer said. “Why not give competition a chance?”
The FCC countered that AT&T was the only company that could use the spectrum, and if the paging industry was not happy with 20 megahertz, it would get nothing.
“In the 1970’s, the FCC had guts,” Dwyer said. So instead, the FCC set aside the paging industry’s 20 megahertz for what would later become SMR service.
Undeterred, Dwyer left Airsignal in 1976 and went into business on his own, operating paging, mobile telephone, SMR and answering service businesses in Illinois, Indiana, Texas, Massachusetts, Florida and Ohio. By the early ’80s, the FCC had finally decided to award spectrum in 30 of the top markets nationwide to foster competition in the wireless industry. Dwyer saw an opportunity and formed American Cellular Telephone Corp. to participate in the proceedings. The company filed for four licenses in Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Los Angeles and Tampa, Fla.
“We did not know what we had to file,” Dwyer recalled. “There were rules, but no one knew what they meant.”
American Cellular won all of its markets except Tampa, and quickly built the company into a leading cellular operator. The carrier eventually was bought out by BellSouth Mobility.
With wireless still in his blood, Dwyer went onto Independent Cellular Networks, which built out 22 markets in the Midwest and Florida. In 1996, Independent Cellular, which was doing business as Cellular One, sold its northern properties to 360
