Young Entrepreneur Changes the U.S. Cell Phone Market Ahmed Khattak came to America to study but stayed to reshape the U.S. cell phone market.
By Marty Jerome
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
People who overturn the apple cart don't ask for permission. But it takes more than audacity for a 26-year-old to challenge an entire industry. For Ahmed Khattak, it was personal: He couldn't buy a phone. An international student from Peshawar, Pakistan, Khattak arrived at Yale in 2004 at the age of 18 with no social security number and no credit history. That meant no one would sell him a cell phone.
He was appalled at the barriers the U.S. cell phone industry threw in front of consumers at every turn. Restrictive two-year contracts?
Indecipherable pricing schemes for voice, data and text? And, once he got a prepaid phone, $50 a week just to call his family back in Pakistan? This, from the most technologically advanced country in the world?
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