Who are the movers and shakers that make or break the U.S. wireless and wireline industries? In this annual list, FierceWireless ranks the men and women who make the decisions that shape the telecom industry. And for the first time, we've included several power players from the wireline side of the business as we found that the gap between wireline and wireless is rapidly narrowing and those who exert influence on one side of the business typically have just as much power on the other. There are some significant changes from last year: Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's outgoing CEO, has seen his power quotient drop since he announced earlier this year that he would be retiring. Likewise, BlackBerry's former CEO Thorsten Heins is no longer on the list after being ousted as the top chief of the company Nov. 4. And Alcatel-Lucent's former CEO Ben Verwaayen, who resigned early this year, is also off the list. Newcomers on the list include John Legere, T-Mobile US's outspoken and innovative new CEO, and Maggie Wilderotter, the CEO of Frontier Communications, a company that is making interesting inroads in the rural broadband market. Click here for the full list.
