Arlene Harris (inventor)

Last updated
Arlene Harris
Arlene Harris, the 1st lady of wireless (cropped).jpg
Born (1948-06-06) June 6, 1948 (age 76)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur
Inventor
EmployerDyna LLC
Known forDyna LLC
Wrethink
GreatCall
TitleFounder and CEO of Dyna LLC
Spouse
​
(m. 1991)​
Website www.dynallc.com
www.wrethinking.com

Arlene Joy Harris (born June 6, 1948) is an entrepreneur, inventor, investor, and policy advocate in the telecommunications industry. She is the president and co-founder of Dyna LLC, an incubator for start-up and early-stage organizations historically in the wireless technology field. [1] Harris is widely recognized as a pioneer in mobile and wireless enterprise and an innovator of consumer products and services. In May 2007, she became the first female inductee of the Wireless Hall of Fame, [2] and was named to the Consumer Technology Hall of Fame in 2017. [3]

Contents

Harris started and built several companies. She was a founding member of many early cellular industry organizations and holds several patents in wireless communications. Her companies’ successes included achieving substantial market share for cellular billing systems, developing and implementing the first prepaid cellular service, and creating the first automated wireless management systems. Notably, she led the development and market introduction of the SOS phone, renamed the Jitterbug as part of her GreatCall organization. The Jitterbug phone was developed and launched in 2006 in partnership with Samsung. [4] Subsequently, it was sold to a Chicago private equity company in July 2017 and acquired on August 15, 2018, by Best Buy Co, Inc. [5]

Career

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Harris began her career at the age of 12 as a mobile telephone switchboard operator for her family's business, Industrial Communications Systems (ICS), Inc. (sold to Metromedia in 1983, now Spok).

2018–present

Don Norman Design Award

Harris is a Founding Director of Don Norman Design Award (DNDA). [6]

Wrethink

Harris is currently working on Wrethink, a high-tech start-up company focused on consumer privacy and helping families use technology to organize and manage personal information. [7]

Wrethinking

Harris and Martin Cooper started, Wrethinking, a foundation to support early-stage technology companies and other meaningful non-profits that embrace charitable and/or aligned social purposes. Wrethinking provides startup funding and continued support for the Internet Safety Labs (ISL). ISL promotes the use of disciplined and verifiable product safety protection concepts and rules in the creation of all software and its provision of services to connect consumer devices. Wrethinking also supports several other non-profits. [8] )

Accessible Wireless

In 2001, Harris acquired cellular carrier Accessible Wireless in order to provide a home carrier service for offerings targeting low-usage services. Accessible Wireless enabled the wireless services delivered later by GreatCall, Inc., at a time when other wireless carriers did not support low-usage service or provide value-added services needed by GreatCall's customers.

GreatCall, Inc.

GreatCall, acquired by Best Buy on August 15, 2018, was founded by Harris to establish the Best Buy's connected health market entry. Harris conceived and led GreatCall through the development of the Jitterbug phone in partnership with Samsung. Jitterbug is a cellular device designed to provide wireless cellular access to less tech-savvy customers, such as senior citizens. [9] Jitterbug was named to the New York Times “Top 10 List” of greatest technology ideas of 2006, per personal tech columnist David Pogue. [10] It was a finalist in Yahoo's "Last Gadget Standing" competition at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2007 [11] and was named by Reader's Digest as one of its “Top 100 Products”. In the same year, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), a trade association representing the wireless communications industry in the United States, recognized GreatCall with the wireless industry's coveted Andrew Seybold Choice Award for "Best New Company”. [12] GreatCall was also acclaimed by the American Society on Aging with the Stevie Award for "Best Small Business in 2008”. [13]

In 2009, GreatCall acquired Mobiwatch, [14] [15] a company focused on developing Mobile Personal Emergency Response Services (M-PERS), for an undisclosed amount and spent the following two years implementing a service that, along with Jitterbug, established GreatCall's connected health solution.

Wireless History Foundation

Harris founded the Wireless History Foundation in 2008 along with Liz Maxfield and Judith Lockwood Purcell. The Wireless History Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization formed to preserve and promote the history of the wireless industry. Harris remains on the organization's board of directors. [16]

1990-1999

In 1994, Harris founded SOS Wireless Communications. SOS developed a phone and specialized services for making outgoing calls for urgent and occasional communications marketed primarily to elderly Americans. [17]

1980-1989

In 1981, under the leadership of Harris, ICS developed the first wireless consumer healthcare application. Called Life Page, the program provided pagers to patients awaiting organ transplants. She later promoted and expanded the program to Telocator, the National Trade Association for independent wireless operators. (Telocator later became the Personal Communications Industry Association [PCIA], which recently changed its name to the Wireless Infrastructure Association [WIA].)

Under Harris and her family's direction, ICS became the largest single-city paging system in the world. Most notably, ICS was among the first of any category of business to create online computer systems to manage business subscriber offerings, now referred to as Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

In addition to its direct sales to businesses, ICS also supported the first wholesale wireless service in history, starting in 1972. This wholesale model promoted substantial growth and shareholder value for ICS, its suppliers, and its partners. Because of the success ICS realized in its wholesale strategy of bolstering opportunities for partners and service adoption by new users, its resale concept was mandated by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the original cellular spectrum allocations in 1982. In 1983, Harris co-founded Cellular Business Systems, Inc. (CBSI), which was sold to Cincinnati Bell Information Systems in 1986 and is now Netcracker. At CBSI, Harris guided the development of a billing/CRM (customer relationship management) service bureau (currently known as SAAS—software-as-a-service). CBSI developed the first automated cellular service activation systems (referred to as “provisioning systems”) now used globally in retail locations to remotely and instantly activate cellular phones. Also, at CBSI, Harris served as one of three FCC committee members challenged to develop intersystem roaming protocols. The committee was established to create the methods by which cellular companies enabled and billed customers who visited their networks. The committee's work, along with subsequent efforts by CTIA, resulted in the Cellular Inter-carrier Billing Exchange Record (CIBER) used throughout the cellular industry.

In 1986, Harris founded the software company Subscriber Computing, Inc. which was acquired by Corsair Communications Inc. in April 1998. (Corsair was then sold to Lightbridge Inc. in 2000.) Susbscriber Computing, Inc. built and delivered systems to the largest paging companies in the world. These systems provided the first converged billing systems for cellular transmissions and Internet communications to leading global technology companies including Motorola, British Telecom, and Hutchinson. In 1988, Subscriber Computing, Inc. implemented the first communications methods used to support access to cellular services by low and no-credit consumers. This is now known as "prepaid" cellular service, which has grown to one of the primary choices for cellular customers. The advent of prepaid cellular service generated rapid cellular adoption in developing countries where consumer credit was scarce. Harris’ team used some of the same realtime techniques employed in prepaid cellular service for the development of systems created to prevent the fraudulent use of cellular phones – a problem that caused revenue losses for cellular carriers due to stolen airtime.

In 1986, Harris also founded the company Cellular Pay Phone, Inc. (CPPI), where she developed her first patented invention, the first unique application of cellular service – custom designed cellular phone and a program-controlled end-to-end management system (created with Mal Gurian at OKI Electronics and the Cellular Mobile Division at Motorola). This offering made CPPI the first niche cellular reseller to create a tightly integrated system to support cellular service with automated payments by credit card. This system was licensed to GTE Mobilnet for use in its ViaCall service, which provided pay cellphones in public vehicles, limousines, trains, barges, and oil rigs. In 1986, Harris launched Dyna LLC in Chicago, Illinois, and later relocated the organization to Del Mar, California, to incubate and spin out new ideas and to help young companies and entrepreneurs.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AT&T Mobility</span> American telecommunications company

AT&T Mobility, LLC, also known as AT&T Wireless and marketed as simply AT&T, is an American telecommunications company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T Inc. and provides wireless services in the United States. AT&T Mobility is the second largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 114.5 million subscribers as of March 31, 2024.

AT&T Wireless Services, Inc., formerly part of AT&T Corporation, was a wireless telephone carrier founded in 1987 in the United States, based in Redmond, Washington, and later traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol "AWE", as a separate entity from its former parent.

Rogers Wireless Inc. is a Canadian mobile network operator headquartered in Toronto, providing service nationally throughout Canada. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rogers Communications. The company had revenues of just under $15.1 billion in 2018. Rogers Wireless is the largest wireless carrier in Canada, with 13.7 million subscribers as of Q2 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prepaid mobile phone</span> "Pay-as-you-go" mobile phone service

A prepaid mobile device, also known as a pay-as-you-go (PAYG), pay-as-you-talk, pay and go, go-phone, prepay, or burner phone, is a mobile device such as a phone for which credit is purchased in advance of service use. The purchased credit is used to pay for telecommunications services at the point the service is accessed or consumed. If there is no credit, then access is denied by the cellular network or Intelligent Network. Users can top up their credit at any time using a variety of payment mechanisms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of mobile phones</span> Mobile communication devices

The history of mobile phones covers mobile communication devices that connect wirelessly to the public switched telephone network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TracFone Wireless</span> Mobile virtual network operator

TracFone Wireless, Inc. (TFWI) was an American wireless service provider. It was a mobile virtual network operator offering prepaid and no-contract service on the AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile US, and Verizon networks under multiple brands, including TracFone, Net10 Wireless, GoSmart Mobile, Page Plus Cellular, SafeLink Wireless, Simple Mobile, Total Wireless, and Straight Talk Wireless.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alltel</span> Former American telecommunications company

Alltel was a landline, wireless and general telecommunications services provider, primarily based in the United States. Before its wireless division was acquired by Verizon Wireless and AT&T, Alltel provided cellular service to 34 states and had approximately 13 million subscribers. As a regulatory condition of the acquisition by Verizon, a small portion of Alltel was spun off and continued to operate under the same name in six states, mostly in rural areas. Following the merger, Alltel remained the ninth largest wireless telecommunications company in the United States, with approximately 800,000 customers. On January 22, 2013, AT&T announced they were acquiring what remained of Alltel from Atlantic Tele-Network for $780 million in cash.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sun Cellular</span> Telecommunications company in the Philippines

Digitel Mobile Philippines, Inc., doing business as Sun Cellular, was a wholly owned subsidiary of Digital Telecommunications Philippines (Digitel), which in turn was owned by PLDT and is one of the Philippines' largest mobile telecommunications companies. It was established by Digitel in September 2001 to provide wireless public and private telecommunications services. Sun Cellular was known for introducing unlimited call and text services in the Philippines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C Spire</span> Telecommunication company in the U.S.

C Spire, formerly known as Cellular South, Inc., is an American privately owned telecommunications and technology company headquartered in Ridgeland, Mississippi. The company consists of three business divisions – Wireless, Home Fiber, and Business.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Cooper (inventor)</span> American engineer (born 1928)

Martin Cooper is an American engineer. He is a pioneer in the wireless communications industry, especially in radio spectrum management, with eleven patents in the field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CTIA (organization)</span> Trade association

CTIA is a trade association representing the wireless communications industry in the United States. The association was established in 1984 and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit membership organization, and represents wireless carriers and suppliers, and manufacturers and providers of wireless products and services.

Lively is a connected health technology company based in the United States of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nextel</span> Former telecommunications company

Nextel Communications, Inc. was an American wireless service operator that merged with and ceased to exist as a subsidiary of Sprint Corporation, which would later be bought by T-Mobile US and folded into that company. Nextel in Brazil, and formerly in Argentina, Chile, Peru, the Philippines, and Mexico, is part of NII Holdings, a stand-alone, publicly traded company not owned by Sprint Corporation.

MobiTV, Inc. operated as a provider of live and on-demand video delivery solutions, with its headquarters located in Emeryville, California. Founded in 1999 by Paul Scanlan, Phillip Alvelda, and Jeff Annison, Mobi TV was a privately held company supported by venture capital. Charlie Nooney held the roles of CEO and Chairman of the company on October 15, 2007.

Consumer Cellular, Inc. is an American postpaid mobile virtual network operator founded by John Marick and Greg Pryor in Portland, Oregon in October 1995. The company offers cellphones, no-contract cellphone plans, and accessories with a focus on users over age 50. Including its corporate headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona, Consumer Cellular is completely U.S. based, employing more than 3,100 people in Arizona, Oregon, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Texas.

The history of the prepaid mobile phones began in the 1990s when mobile phone operators sought to expand their market reach. Up until this point, mobile phone services were exclusively offered on a postpaid basis (contract-based), which excluded individuals with poor credit ratings and minors under the age of 18 In early 1991, Kenneth Johnson of Queens, New York along with Mark Feldman, Pedro Diaz and Kevin Lambright of Alicomm Mobile, was the first to successfully create a prepaid cellular phone and Network. His company expanded to a Sales force from Maine to Florida. Two years later others would come out with similar systems.

Q Link Wireless is an American telecommunications company based in Dania, Florida that provides free wireless services to Lifeline eligible consumers. The company also offers prepaid mobile phone services including wireless voice, messaging, and data services under the Hello Mobile brand.

mobi (company) Hawaiʻi wireless carrier

mobi, Inc. is a wireless carrier founded in 2004 and based in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. The company provides service on each of the major islands of Hawaiʻi, as well as on the mainland United States through roaming agreements with other carriers.

References

  1. ↑ "Top U.S. Wireless Innovators of All Time". www.fierce-network.com. Retrieved 2024-06-20.
  2. ↑ "Harris, Kitchen inducted into 2007 Wireless Hall of Fame". RCR Wireless News. 1999-11-30. Retrieved 2018-12-10.
  3. ↑ "CTA - CTA Names 12 Industry Leaders to the 2017 CT Hall of Fame". CTA. Retrieved 2018-12-10.
  4. ↑ "GreatCall's Jitterbug Receives CTIA Wireless 2006 E-tech Award for Innovation in Hardware Category; First Cell Offering for Boomers and Their Parents Receives Recognition at the World's Largest Wireless Show". www.businesswire.com. 2006-04-06. Retrieved 2018-12-10.
  5. ↑ "Best Buy Acquires GreatCall, a Leading Connected Health Services Provider". investors.bestbuy.com. Retrieved 2018-12-10.
  6. ↑ "About DNDA". dnda.design. 13 September 2024. Retrieved 2024-09-13.
  7. ↑ "Arlene Harris to Deliver Keynote Address at Westcliff University 2024". www.westcliff.edu. 14 April 2024. Retrieved 2024-04-14.
  8. ↑ "Women Making History: 5 Women Who Got Us to 5G". www.t-mobile.com. Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  9. ↑ "Cell Phones, Medical Alert & Safety for Seniors | GreatCall". www.greatcall.com. Retrieved 2019-02-08.
  10. ↑ Jitterbug. Oxford Music Online. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. 2001. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.14320.
  11. ↑ "Yahoo! Tech Announces Winners of Last Gadget Standing Event at CES 2007". www.businesswire.com. 2007-01-10. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  12. ↑ "The Best of The Anderw Seybold Choice Awards". andrewseybold.com. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  13. ↑ "2008 Honorees | Stevie Awards". stevieawards.com. 7 December 2010. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  14. ↑ "Jitterbug scoops up M-PERS start-up, MobiWatch". MobiHealthNews. 2009-11-04. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  15. ↑ "GreatCall Buys MobiWatch". PE Hub. 2009-11-04. Retrieved 2018-12-13.[ permanent dead link ]
  16. ↑ "Who We Are". wirelesshistoryfoundation.org. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  17. ↑ Gregson, Reily (April 7, 1997). "SOS PHONE SERVES SECURITY CONSCIOUS CELLULAR PHONE OWNERS". RCR Wireless.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.