With mighty Qualcomm at its core, San Diego is a telecom powerhouse. But when editors at spunky FierceWireless sleuthed out 15 emerging companies poised to make a difference on the North American wireless scene, they found none in San Diego worthy of the list. California’s Bay Area was well represented, with firms from Cupertino (Ecrio), Sunnyvale (Telenav), Redwood City (Obopay) and Menlo Park (Sonopia). Washington checked in with Seattle (Gogomo) and Bellevue (Snap In). Cambridge, Mass., had two (iSkoot, JumpTap) while a pair of Maryland firms made the cut, one in West Friendship (Metrico Wireless) and the other in Baltimore (Millennial Media). Rounding out the online publication’s unordered list were firms from Columbus, Ohio (Integrated Mobile), Fort Myers, Fla. (Interop Technologies), Westminister, Colo. (TensorComm) Alpharetta, Ga. (Omnilinks Systems), and Stockholm, Sweden (Noenode).

Then again, not to worry too much. If Qualcomm likes what it sees in one of these firms, it can do the same thing major biopharms in San Francisco and Boston do to promising San Diego biotechs: buy them outright and consolidate the executive management in the new owner’s hometown.