The Spreadsheet that Fueled the Telecom Boom – and Bust
“I had built a model in an Excel spreadsheet that translated what our sales forecast was into how much traffic we would expect to see,” he says. “And so I just assigned variables for those various parameters, and then said we can set those variables to whatever we think is appropriate.” – Tom Stluka, Worldcom […]
HOW THE US MOBILE INDUSTRY CAME TOGETHER, PART III: JUNK BONDS CONSOLIDATE THE NETWORK
In 1986, McCaw Cellular approached financier Michael Milken for capital to compete against AT&T with a wireless network. The McCaw family wanted the money to purchase cellular licenses and to buy MCI Wireless for nearly $2 billion.
How the US Mobile Industry Came Together, Part II: The Grand Alliance
Much like J.P. Morgan’s creation of telephone industry giant AT&T, the wireless industry was one of the information industries (along with cable TV, fiber optics and satellite TV) created mainly through the efforts of financier Michael Milken of the defunct investment firm Drexel Burnham Lambert. Milken helped the McCaw family assemble the wireless industry during […]
How the US Mobile Industry Came Together, Part I: Transformation of the Network
The ubiquity, ease and sophistication of mobile “smartphone” services has proven to be an extraordinarily popular addition to modern social and productive life. We are now on the cusp of the 5th generation (5G) rollout of wireless services. It is different to gauge the characteristics of social change in the midst of such dramatic technological […]
Potential Bill on Net Neutrality and Deep Packet Inspection
Just got this discussion draft by Eliot Lance Engel (D-NY) from one of my former colleagues at New York University and a former Verizon executive, Thomas Dargan. Eliot Lance Engel (D-NY) is the U.S. Representative for New York’s 16th congressional district that contains parts of the Bronx and Westchester County.[1] US telecommunications policy is based […]
THE EXPERIMENT, Part I: New Zealand as the World Model For Digital Monetarism
In 1992 I moved to New Zealand for my first academic position at Victoria University in Wellington. One of my major objectives was to research the privatization of the NZ telecommunications system. Starting “Down Under” One of the first “guinea pigs” for the global system of digital monetarism was New Zealand. A one-time leader in […]
Auctioning Radio Spectrum for Mobile Services and Public Safety
The breakup of AT&T in the 1980s created new opportunities for new companies to emerge and offer new services, including wireless or mobile telecommunications. Wireless systems lacked the spectrum or infrastructure for broadband and telcos were restricted by their “common carrier” status from carrying content at the time. Government policy needed to address the issue […]
CISCO SYSTEMS: FROM CAMPUS TO THE WORLD’S MOST VALUABLE COMPANY, PART THREE: PUSHING TCP/IP
Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner combined several technologies being developed at Stanford University and the Silicon Valley area to form the networking behemoth, Cisco Systems. However, success was by no means foreseen in the early years. The key was when the pair obtained access to Bill Yeager’s source code for the multiple-protocol “Blue Box” router […]
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About Me
Professor at State University of New York (SUNY) Korea since 2016. Moved to Austin, Texas in August 2012 to join the Digital Media Management program at St. Edwards University. Spent the previous decade on the faculty at New York University teaching and researching information systems, digital economics, and strategic communications.
You can reach me at:
apennings70@gmail.com
anthony.pennings@sunykorea.ac.kr
About me
Writings by Category
- artificial intelligence
- automatrix
- books and films
- characteristics of digital media
- creative cities
- creative industries
- crisis communications
- cultural Industries
- data analytics and meaning
- democratic political economies
- digital coordination
- digital destruction
- digital geography
- digital media economics
- digital media management
- digital monetarism
- digital spreadsheets
- disruption
- dystopian economies
- educational innovations
- electric money
- enabling frameworks
- enterprise systems
- financial news
- financial technology
- food policy and security
- futurists
- geopolitical risk
- global communications
- global e-commerce
- health IT
- how IT came to rule the world
- intellectual property
- journalism
- meaning makers
- meaningful play
- media strategies
- mobile technologies
- multimedia
- political economies in sf
- political economy of media
- science and technology studies
- sensing technologies
- smart new deal
- social media
- space systems
- strategic communications
- sustainable development
- technologies of meaning
- technology management
- telecom policy and net neutrality
- telegraphic political economy
- telelearn/telework
- the cold war
- the smith effect
- uncategorized
- visual literacy and rhetoric