If you want clout in Washington, the only thing better than being a top board member of either of the two largest wireless trade associations is not being a member of the two largest wireless trade associations
Ask Nextel Communications Inc. It’s not a member of either the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association or the Personal Communications Industry Association, but it has unparalleled influence with federal regulators, Congress and the courts.
Nextel does all this without help from a big association or a corps of high-powered lobbyists. Just Nextel and its Jones, Day law firm. You can’t help but be impressed.
To be sure, Nextel, a self-styled maverick, is not entirely anti-social. The nation’s No. 1 dispatch operator is a dues-paying member of the American Mobile Telecommunications Association.
But even at that, Nextel is at odds with other AMTA members on the top dispatch issue of the day: the relaxation of a 1995 Nextel-Motorola antitrust decree.
Truth is, Nextel does it alone when it comes to big power plays (outbidding the entire dispatch industry for bankrupt Geotek’s SMR licenses; persuading the Justice Department to ease the ’95 decree; convincing the FCC to give it private wireless spectrum and to let it be the exclusive buyer of bankrupt NextWave’s PCS licenses).
So what’s the message here? Is Nextel saying trade associations are irrelevant? Or is Nextel, perhaps unwittingly making trade groups irrelevant by virtue of its own lobbying successes?
To some extent, Nextel is where it is today precisely because of the foundation laid by wireless trade groups long before it came into existence.
But one can see that, at a time of increased competition, consolidation and technological convergence in the global economy, a firm might want to be free of consensus politics and other association baggage.
Granted, it helps if you’re a near-monopoly with a proprietary operating system. Nextel and Microsoft Corp. can appreciate this point.
Think about it. Would Nextel have attempted to do the NextWave deal with the FCC and Justice Department if it were still a CTIA member and knew it had to face other wireless executives, say, like CTIA Vice Chairman Andrew Sukawaty of Sprint PCS?
No doubt, other CTIA wireless carriers are angry they didn’t have the brains and moxie to make a play for NextWave licenses before Nextel got to the feds.
The flip side is, would CTIA have raised questions about The Deal and the integrity of the FCC auction program if Nextel were still a member?
So then, who needs big associations or lobbyists when you can change the hearts and minds of official Washington by yourself?
Things will only get better for Nextel in the George W. administration.
