The back-page "What's Next" department of this week's issue of Telephony provides an insightful look at the mobile virtual network operator market and draws an intriguing--and somewhat disturbing--parallel.

The piece is based on a conversation with Alex Besen, who is the founder of the consultancy The Besen Group and a veteran of the PCS spectrum wars. Besen was an early employee at Pocket Communications, one of many small wireless hopefuls that became unfortunate examples of how wireless entrepreneurship failed. Pocket rivaled NextWave Communications as one of the top bidders in the so-called C block PCS license auction, which peddled spectrum reserved for upstart wireless outfits.

If you follow the wireless sector on even a cursory level, you know that no such outfits exist in the wireless industry today. Pocket's business plan didn't pan out, and it sold off its spectrum and the beginnings of its network years ago. NextWave opted to engage in a protracted legal battle that was only resolved within the past year. The rest of the entrepreneurial wireless set similarly fizzled. The whole experience proved, at least to some, that wireless was not a business for the small--a truth proved out by the behemoths that currently control the U.S. mobile market.

Besen's point in this week's Telephony is that the burgeoning MVNO sector could face a similar fate as that of the PCS start-ups, if the right kinds of companies don't embrace the MVNO model--or rather, if the wrong kind of companies do embrace it. As compelling as the MVNO concept is, like PCS, it is not a business for the small. The companies that will realize ultimate success as MVNOs are those with firmly established brands, customer bases and distribution models. Entities that want to be in the wireless game but lack those characteristics will spend a lot of money, time and energy trying to build a wireless business, but for better or worse, the deck is heavily stacked against them.

Covering the trials and tribulations of the C block PCS hopefuls was one of the most enjoyable and memorable experiences I had as a reporter in the mid-1990s. But while it was exciting, and while the ups and downs of all those entrepreneurs made great copy in the pages of Telephony, I don't want to do it again. Here's hoping the MVNO sector doesn't end up being fodder for similar coverage.

E-mail me at jmeyers@primediabusiness.com.