WIRELESS NATION: The Frenzied Launch of the Cellular Revolution

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. (Aug.)