When Mike Gallagher joined First Avenue Networks in early September, taking the reins of the president and CEO position from Dean Johnson, the move was the culmination of an infusion of big-name executive talent and a strategic transformation that began in 2001. That's when Johnson, a broadband wireless consultant and previously founder of a cable TV company in Charlottesville, W.V., led the buyout of the radio spectrum assets of Advanced Radio Telecom, one of several firms that had gone bankrupt in pursuit of the dream that broadband wireless service providers could become telco replacements on a mass-market scale.

Johnson emerged later that same year with the newly named firm — First Avenue Networks — and a spectrum-leasing business model leveraging his new 39 GHz licenses. By the beginning of 2004, the firm was building up financing for a bigger deal. In July 2004, it announced the $99 million acquisition of the operations and 24 GHz spectrum assets of Teligent. That deal closed in December 2004. Days later, First Avenue Networks announced it had raised $93 million.

Also, First Avenue Networks added two more executives rich in broadband wireless experience. Bob Beran, who advised First Avenue Networks as a consultant during the planning and execution of the company's acquisition of Teligent, became senior vice president of the company in charge of operations in late 2004; and in May of this year, the company hired Joe Sandri, the former president of Winstar/IDT spectrum, as senior vice president and president of First Avenue Networks Solutions, a new division of the company undertaking development of services for government and enterprise.

“We've always had spectrum, and now we've got more,” Johnson said recently. “We also have money, and without the money, we couldn't have been very credible in what we are trying to do next.”

What's next for First Avenue Networks is a new three-pronged strategic focus on wireless network backhaul; fiber extensions in places where fiber is too expensive or difficult to deploy; and government and enterprises services, with a large emphasis on communications redundancy for government agency clients that have to meet a mandate for back-up communications laid out in recent Homeland Security legislation.

Gallagher, the former Flarion Technologies executive who took charge of First Avenue Networks last month (Johnson remains vice chairman), said backhaul is the most costly and problematic issue for mobile carriers. “With more data traffic, the cost for T-1s that those mobile carrier have will double,” he said. “There are more options today, but still a lack of wireless options. If you look in Europe, about 70% of backhaul is wireless, and here, about 1% of it is.”

Gallagher added that the company's spectrum riches are the key. “We have more than 600 MHz of spectrum in place, and now we need to get out to the operators. We have not engaged with them as much as we would like to, and one of the primary things I'm charged with is building a robust sales force capable of doing that.”

The new plans for First Avenue Networks may finally build long-term success with that spectrum that Teligent, Winstar and Advanced Radio Telecom never could achieve. “Teligent and Winstar wanted to be phone companies,” Johnson said. “We don't.”