Over a cup of coffee one Saturday morning, Jai Bhagat decided to try his luck with a new spinoff company called Mtel. That was eight years ago. Today he is president and chief executive officer of Mobile Telecommunications Technologies Corp.’s $170 million paging subsidiary, SkyTel Corp., which launched the first narrowband personal communications services network three months ago.
Being first up in two-way messaging is only the latest passage in SkyTel’s success story. The company has helped define the direction of the paging business. SkyTel pioneered nationwide one-way paging and two-way advanced messaging, innovations proposed and realized by Bhagat and Mtel Chairman John Palmer.
A native of New Delhi, India, Bhagat is steadfast, yet modest about his successes. In an RCR interview, Bhagat recounted career highlights in an anecdotal manner-captivating, humorous and all his own. Best said, Jai Bhagat is the type of person you would enjoy sitting beside on an airplane.
In a still-young industry, Bhagat has accrued much-and quite diverse- experience. He has tread ground in legal, consulting and manufacturing domains of the business. Beginning at the beginning. But it’s Bhagat’s engineering prowess and astute business sense that has earned him his glory in the paging arena. He is the technology visionary behind SkyTel’s nationwide networks, said Jennifer O’Mahony, SkyTel’s public relations manager.
At PCS ’95, in Orlando last September, Bhagat received the Personal Communications Industry Association’s Chairman’s Award for outstanding contribution to the wireless industry, and two years ago was presented with PCIA’s technology award.
“His technical expertise is renowned in the industry,” said Jay Kitchen, PCIA president. “Jai’s just an all-around nice person”
Bhagat joined the company when Mtel was known as Mobile Communications Corporation of America.
He met his boss-to-be John Palmer in court. Palmer and MCCA of Jackson, Miss., in 1978 had applied to the state of Pennsylvania for certification to operate a paging system in Pittsburgh. Bhagat was then the director of engineering for New York-based Air Signal International, an existing paging provider in Pittsburgh that challenged MCCA’s proposal. Bhagat testified in those hearings against MCCA.
The following year, Bhagat recalled, he had reached a turning point in his career. Retelling a story that typifies the time, Bhagat’s narrative offers a glimpse of his affable character.
While living in New York and working on his MBA at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, one day Bhagat received a call at school from his wife. Their daughter was ill, she said, and could he please come home. After a $20 bribe to retrieve his car early from a parking lot and a five-hour commute through a terrible snowstorm, Bhagat arrived home by evening to a daughter who was feeling much better. But he was feeling fed up.
“I thought,” laughed Bhagat, “this is no way to make a living … So I called John Palmer and said, `John, I want to come work for you.’ John said, `Come on down.”‘
Bhagat was off to Mississippi with the promise of a new job and better weather. He started with MCCA in January 1980 and within months became vice president of engineering.
“I had a lot of respect for [John] and what he and MCCA were doing at that point,” said Bhagat. “People didn’t even have wide area systems and here’s John coming out of Jackson asking the FCC to allocate spectrum for nationwide paging*…*That intrigued me.”
By the late 1980s, MCCA had entered the cellular business with BellSouth Corp., and BellSouth became a 15 percent owner of MCCA. However, once the FCC designated spectrum for nationwide paging, BellSouth could not offer the paging service because it was restricted by the 1984 Modification of Judgment prohibiting Baby Bells from operating national satellite service, considered an interexchange service, in their local service markets. BellSouth offered to buy the rest of MCCA in 1987.
Senior management of the companies met on a Friday to discuss the buyout, remembered Bhagat. The next morning-“Back in the days we worked Saturdays,” commented Bhagat-he and Palmer met at the office. Over “a typical cup of coffee,” said Bhagat, the pair confirmed their career plans.
“John looked at me and said, `If we have this spinoff company, what are you going to do?”‘ Bhagat recalled. “I said `John, what are you going to do?’ John said, `Well … I think I’m going to have fun running the new company … What are you going to do?”‘ Bhagat responded with little hesitation. “I said, `John, I am going where you’re going.’ “
And so the story goes. Mtel was born out of MCCA as a nationwide paging operator. SkyTel was founded in 1987 as its chief subsidiary.
The company has prospered by concentrating on one goal. “Today SkyTel’s focus is on messaging. We are not trying to be everything to everybody.”
This clear vision, supported by Mtel’s technology advances in paging protocol transmission speeds, led to Mtel’s pioneer’s preference award.
“By 1991, our company took the lead in developing 2,400 bits per second,” said Bhagat, noting 1,200 bps then was the fastest protocol. “We said we would do 20 times faster than the state-of-the-art technology, 10 times faster than what we had done at Mtel.”
Upon receipt of its experimental narrowband PCS license in 1992, Mtel conducted field testing and surpassed its own estimate, attaining outbound message speeds of 25,600 bps.
Mtel submitted a three-part application to the FCC asking to offer advanced messaging services, seeking a pioneer’s preference in two-way messaging and requesting spectrum for these services. The firm was awarded its pioneer’s preference in 1994.
Motorola Inc. has been an integral player in SkyTel’s success developing two-way messaging technology. “It was not an easy task,” said Hector Ruiz, general manager, Motorola’s Paging Products Group. Ruiz said Bhagat “always wanted to find the next step up from paging*…*He is one of the most thought-provoking risk takers in the industry.”
Initially, Mtel’s two-way messaging pursuit operated under Destineer Corp., a partnership including venture capital firm Kliner, Perkins, Caufield Byers L.L.P., Microsoft Corp., Integral Capital Partners and individual investors Bill Gates and Paul Allen of Microsoft Corp. About a year ago, the investment partners exchanged their Destineer holdings for equity in Mtel.
Destineer became a wholly owned subsidiary of Mtel, and shortly after, two-way service was integrated into SkyTel as SkyTel 2-Way.
“Two-way is a natural extension of one-way,” Bhagat said. Of 30 million total U.S. one-way paging customers, SkyTel claims a share of just more than 1 million, about double its units in service a year ago. SkyTel 2-Way service already is available in 1,300 cities and towns across the country.
On his and SkyTel’s success, Bhagat simply offered, “There are lot of happy people in Jackson, Mississippi.”
