Short Note
I must go out of town today so I can only write this short note. I'll have something on the history of CDMA in cellular radio soon. I must first sort out the self-serving corporate histories and the self-promoting bios. And the omissions. Nothing on Phil Karn at Qualcomm's website? Are you people already forgetting who developed your own technology? Hello!
In reading the history of cellular you'd think everyone was a visionary. Vision this! Were Huntington, Stanford, Crocker, and Hopkins transportation visionaries? Or robber barons? Yes, the railroads were good for the country, wireless is too, but don't try to convince me that these people thought a primary motive was the public good.
"Anything that is not nailed down is mine. Anything that can be pried loose is not nailed down."
It's said the first rule of business is to make money. Wrong. It's to legally make money. You make an ethical decision to not be a criminal. Most of us then try not to skirt the law. We choose not to sell worthless medical cures, cars that will soon break down, or plans to bilk people out of their life savings. These three things may be legal but we don't do them. The history of wireless to me is not a study in entrepreneurship but a study of what one could get away with. More later.