Morgan E. O'Brien
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Morgan Edward O'Brien (1944- ), chairman of Cyren Call Communications, is a pioneer in U.S. wireless telecommunications. As the co-founder and chairman of Nextel Communications, Inc. (now part of Sprint Nextel Corp.), O'Brien led the creation of the first all-digital nationwide wireless network (the Nextel National Network using iDEN technology developed by Motorola for Nextel) and brought push-to-talk (PTT) communication to the mass business and consumer market. He is considered by many to be a visionary leader who has shaped the wireless industry throughout his career.
A native of the Washington, DC area, O'Brien graduated in 1962 from St. Anselm's Abbey School. He worked as an FCC attorney regulating land mobile communications following graduation from Georgetown University and the Northwestern University School of Law. At the FCC, O'Brien was involved in developing regulations for Specialized Mobile Radio (SMR), commercial two-way radio systems widely adopted in the early 1980s by taxi companies, construction companies, and other blue-collar mobile workgroups. O'Brien left the FCC and entered private law practice representing SMR operators and applicants for the first cellular telephone licenses.
Convinced of the business prospects for SMR and the value of spectrum, O'Brien in 1989 founded Fleet Call, a company devoted to acquiring local SMR operations across the country to roll up into a national business. Other key members of the Fleet Call team included CEO Brian McAuley, financier Mark Warner (later a Virginia governor and former presidential hopeful), and vice president Jack Markell (now state treasurer of Delaware).
As new spectrum for digital Personal Communication Service (PCS) carriers was auctioned in the early 1990s, O'Brien saw the future of digital technology and feared his business would become obsolete if Fleet Call did not migrate to digital. Fleet Call's spectrum was fundamentally unsuitable for availale digital technologies, and FCC rules prevented Fleet Call from offering :interconnected" telephone-type services. Undaunted, O'Brien and Fleet Call successfully petitioned the FCC to change the rules, and worked with Motorola to develop the iDEN technology to work with the fragmented SMR spectrum. Fleet Call, rechristened Nextel, overcame technological problems with iDEN to launch a second generation network in 1996 with a substantial financial investment from wireless pioneer Craig McCaw. O'Brien ceded operational control but remained as vice chairman until 2004, at which time Nextel boasted more than 15 million iDEN subscribers.
In 2006 O'Brien launched Cyren Call Communications, a start-up company which has petitioned the FCC with a controversial plan to use 700 MHz spectrum to develop a nationwide public safety wireless broadband network. Like the "Fleet Call waiver" a decade before, O'Brien and Cyren Call have stirred controversy and opposition by proposing to cancel a scheduled auction of the spectrum expected to generate billions for the federal treasury. Adoption of the Cyren Call proposal would require congressional action as well as FCC approval, and is being opposed by cellular operators and influential members of Congress.
O'Brien and his wife adopted two sons.