I am a long time voracious reader. It is a habit developed as a kid and I’ve kept it up throughout my life. Usually, in the hour before going to bed I try to turn off all electronics and spend some time reading. Often, I will also cart my latest book(s) with me to lunches, meetings and appointments so that I can dip into it if I have some time available.

My interests are wide, and includes non-fiction as well as fiction. Philosophy, histories, biographies, business books and self-help tomes are all of interest to me. Over the last year, there have been a few outstanding books on telecom that I wanted to share here with you.

Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story by John Bloom

I read this book over the Christmas holidays as mentioned in my Jan 7, 2018 blog post on quality six-sigma. I learned from it that the Six Sigma management philosophy on eliminating defects was pioneered by Motorola (and then exported to General Electric and to Japan). This book covers the history and the fascinating story of the Iridium LEO satellite system built by Motorola and the huge commercial and political battle to save it from being destroyed due to bankruptcy.

The story itself is fascinating, both from a revolutionary technology perspective and from a business, military and government perspective. It gives some great insight into the thinking that goes on behind the scenes and behind the headlines and how one determined man can make a difference.

It is also very relevant to our current times as there are now multiple groups trying to launch new LEO satellite constellations to provide broadband Internet anywhere on Earth; Elon Musk’s Space-X (Starlink), Richard Branson’s (and Qualcomm and Softbank) OneWeb (to be launched using Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin), and Mark Zuckerburg’s PointView Tech (Athena). The race to provide space-based connectivity has drawn interest from all of the Silicon Valley heavyweights.

I highly recommend reading this book as it will provide some useful context to the upcoming space-based battles as well as being a great tale on its own.

Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of Blackberry
by Sean Silcoff, Jacquie McNish

This is the story of the Blackberry, from the company formerly known as Research in Motion. Told by two veteran Globe and Mail, Report on Business journalists it brings to life one the premier Canadian technology success stories.

This was very fascinating to me as I lived through this time and this story. Blackberry is headquartered here in Waterloo; this is a very local and vary familiar story. I recognized many of the people and events in the book and found it incredible to read it all again.

It highlights the founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie and how they revolutionized telecommunications by inventing a whole device, the smartphone. There was a time where the “Crackberry” ( a very addictive device) was THE phone to have; whether you were in business, finance or even the President of the USA.

Yet, from the heights of owning the market, Blackberry fell due to a combination of factors, all outlined in this riveting tale.

Again, highly recommended both as a celebration of a Canadian success story, but also as a cautionary tale.

Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist by Om Malik

This book is now almost fifteen years old. Om Malik is someone I have immense respect for. He was an investigative reporter when he wrote this before he launched GigaOm, one of the top technology and business blogs in the world and turned it into a media company and research firm. He is now a respected venture partner at True Ventures.I follow Om on social media and always look forward to his curated reading list each week.

Broadbandits is another story that I personally lived through, and it also brought back many memories and many emotions, including a lot of swearing. It describes a lot of the financial fraud behind the telecom bubble of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Telecom giants such as WorldCom, Global Crossing, and the financiers and stock pundits who ended up causing huge financial losses.That telecom bubble affected me directly, as we were just in the process of trying to sell AMI when the market collapsed. Many friends lost a lot of money in the stock market collapse of these frauds.

Reading this book brought it all back to me. If you have been in telecom for a few years you will recognize some of these stories and may have the same reactions I did. If you have been in telecom for less than a decade, read this book to find out the real history and some of the deceit and lies and fraud that preceded you. Either way, it is important to remember the Wild West days of a stodgy industry like telecom here in North America (and Canada was NOT exempt).

Again, highly recommended.