Steve Jobs Envisioned Using Unlicensed Wi-Fi Spectrum for Apple Mobile Phone Network

zap2 said:

You realize the flaws in this comment, right?

What if you had said that about making a success touch screen mobile OS using only one's fingers? Or a about creating a financially successful portable media player?

It's only not feasible until it is.

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the reason why cell phones work is carriers own the frequencies. with the unlicensed spectrum anyone can transmit on those frequencies with the maximum power allowed by the FCC.

an iphone using unlicensed frequencies for everything would have to cope with a lot of interference from every microwave, wifi access point, other iphone and any other unlicensed device

and that's before you build out tens of thousands of towers with an internet connection to every single one

Do it, Tim!

If that were to have ever happened, you could be SURE that Apple would lock down the iPhone even more and have it ONLY work on that spectrum.

Choice is a philosophy that is non-existent at Apple.

alent1234 said:

very few people would buy a smartphone at the $700 average retail price. i know i wouldn't. mobile internet is not that important

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It really is a US issue only. The original iPhone sold really well with out susdidy price. Apple of course did not pass on those savings to us. Instead basically got paid twice for the phone. Apple was really in a position to break the carrier strangle hold on cell phones and instead they gave in.
US lags way behind a good part of the world in off contract phones. I want to say Europe is like at 50% compare to like 5% in the US.

It become normal here. Remember our break on price on cell phones is new phones is only around 150-200. At $10 that savings is made up in 15-20 months.

That savings can really add up. Heck $15 a month would be a better deal. Tmobile used to offer one and the difference in contract price worked out to be like 300 bucks over 2 years. Well more than the 150-200 buck discount they gave you on the phone.
So it works out the carriers give you a break in your monthly bill at what you were paying in say 90% of subsidisy for a phone. That means they are going to get a little money out of the deal but we save more money.

What if this is why they're saving $80bn...

I mean, it stands to reason they want to do *something* with that pile of money.. building a nationwide infrastructure for setting up their own Apple network is precisely what this amount of money could be used for. Any thoughts?

One day, in the future, Apple will announce this:

"Pay a monthly price, and get an iPhone for free, which you can use in any country, anytime, for anything"

Dedicated Apple network, all through the internet.

Carriers will die, and the world will be beautiful.

baryon said:

One day, in the future, Apple will announce this:

"Pay a monthly price, and get an iPhone for free, which you can use in any country, anytime, for anything"

Dedicated Apple network, all through the internet.

Carriers will die, and the world will be beautiful.

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No, Apple would then be a carrier....

OllyW said:

When did Apple reshape the film industry?

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Pixar.

dashiel said:

It may not have been feasible in 2007, but as I’ve mentioned before 802.22 was finalized this year. 100 kilometer range at 20Mbps. Still might not be feasible, but that doesn’t mean 802.?? won’t be, and with Apple having long term leases on hundreds of stores across the country it would give Apple a huge advantage in setting up a nationwide network. You’ll recall there were photos of Verizon/AT&T were installing LTE equipment in their stores.

I won’t be surprised if there’s an Apple network set up once they get over the transition to iCloud and related product transitions.

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Having long term leases on hundreds of stores isn't really a huge advantage. Getting access to rooftops for antenna installations really isn't that hard.

GFLPraxis said:

Well, that would've been cool. Still nice to see the amount of power the carriers lost due to the iPhone- which is only a fraction of the kind of absurd power they have in this country.

The carriers- and the conflict of interest that arises due to the money they make with the outdated business model of selling "minutes" and text messages, when it could all be done via data- are the biggest impediment to progress in the mobile world.

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Yup. Remember those $3.99 ring tones anyone?

alent1234 said:

if this feasible someone would have done it already

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The sort of attitude that ends space programs

chris7777 said:

It's nice to dream about such things, but asking them to relax their stranglhold, would be about as likely as the banking industry sharing, or the oil conglomerations. Not only wont they share, but they dont like the competition either.

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First, one has to 'beleive' it can be done. Had Steve Jobs lived longer he may very well of been able to rock the cellphone industry more than he already did.

Sooner or later these strangleholds have to give. The consumer is running out of money for the banks, oil industry and cell industries etc to suck out of our pockets.

ProwlingTiger said:

Pixar.

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I've never seen a pixar movie.

To say apple reshaped the film industry is another arrogant stance from the apple community. They added to it, but they didnt reshape it.

PeterQVenkman said:

I wonder if Apple's pricing actually would have been more reasonable. Breaking control of telecom carriers is one thing. Competing on price when people are already used to getting bent over a barrel... we'll never know.

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My guess, no. Less competition generally equal higher, not lesser, cost. Of course, the "service" could have been cheaper. But that would essentially just shifting the rents somewhere else (e.g. the device itself). More likely, as i see it, would be the exact opposite. Services are a better source of revenue than products, and it could easily extend to incorporate the entire Apple line of devices.

divinox said:

My guess, no. Less competition generally equal higher, not lesser, cost.

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Nothing from apple has ever been cheaper than the competition. I'd expect premium rates from apple for their own networks.

Rodimus Prime said:

It really is a US issue only. The original iPhone sold really well with out susdidy price. Apple of course did not pass on those savings to us. Instead basically got paid twice for the phone. Apple was really in a position to break the carrier strangle hold on cell phones and instead they gave in.
US lags way behind a good part of the world in off contract phones. I want to say Europe is like at 50% compare to like 5% in the US.

It become normal here. Remember our break on price on cell phones is new phones is only around 150-200. At $10 that savings is made up in 15-20 months.

That savings can really add up. Heck $15 a month would be a better deal. Tmobile used to offer one and the difference in contract price worked out to be like 300 bucks over 2 years. Well more than the 150-200 buck discount they gave you on the phone.
So it works out the carriers give you a break in your monthly bill at what you were paying in say 90% of subsidy for a phone. That means they are going to get a little money out of the deal but we save more money.

Click to expand...

The problem is carriers don't have to tell you the total cost of your contract upfront, plus they don't have to have incentives for you to buy a phone on your own. If it were listed out, and people could see price differences for going with different levels of subsidy, more people may be willing to pay more for a phone upfront. If when your contract was up and the subsidy portion of the payment was removed, maybe folks would think twice about re-upping over another 2 (or more) year term.

And we still don't have FaceTime on 3G due to carriers.

alent1234 said:

if this feasible someone would have done it already

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Actually, he kind of pulled off a low-tech version of this with FaceTime. Apple just doesn't own the spectrum, thus it's not "wi-fi everywhere".

FACETIME over wifi was the start of this... If apple was smart, they would find a way to drive this home... sadly I work for a global telecom, and I can already see where they are going to take the consumer to the cleaner... Apple had the best chance to stop that..

IMO

Consultant said:

Yup. Remember those $3.99 ring tones anyone?

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Does Apple still do ringtones?

diamond.g said:

The problem is carriers don't have to tell you the total cost of your contract upfront, plus they don't have to have incentives for you to buy a phone on your own. If it were listed out, and people could see price differences for going with different levels of subsidy, more people may be willing to pay more for a phone upfront. If when your contract was up and the subsidy portion of the payment was removed, maybe folks would think twice about re-upping over another 2 (or more) year term.

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They could make it the only way to keep that savings is sign up for a new contract every 2 years and always have the option to go to the higher price (and new 2 year agreement) get the subsidies phone price)

I would be willing to pay it but I know I am among the few people how there who can see it add up.

I know for cell bills the only number I care about is the delta. I could care less what the price is of the bill. I just want to know how much it goes up or down for the change since I consider cell phone part of my critical services.

An iPhone to iPhone to iPhone (to Mac/iPad) network...

I don't think Apple's pursuit is over. After 5 generations of iPhones, Apple has a very large installed base of devices. Include iPads and Macs and you have a blanket over large swaths of many cities. Peer to Peer is beginning to look possible.

In an upcoming iOS update, Apple could enable iOS users to opt into a plan where they would allow the ability to network with other iOS devices leapfrogging their data needs from one iPhone to the closest one, to the one further down and so on until reaching a partner's WiFi source. Apple could install very few WiFi sources, even just one in each of their stores.

Essentially, all iPhones would be interconnected peer-to-peer with each other leapfrogging data needs from iPhone to iPhone until reaching an Apple store. In large cities, there are more than enough iPhones and iPads to do this.

Apple could roll this out with iPods and iPads first since most of the installed base of these devices don't have 3G carrier connectivity anyway and then move in to iPhones as well.

Alternatively, Apple could work with WiFi @ Starbucks using this same principle. They have a great relationship with the coffee chain and in many north american cities, there's a Starbucks at every block. Surely between the distance of you and the closest Starbucks, there will be several iPhones which can be piggybacked on to reach the Starbucks signal.

The technology exists and could work on existing iOS devices. It's a matter of working out the business side of things and rolling this out fast enough to avoid angering their telecom partners before the rollout is complete and Apple doesn't need them anymore.

Republic Wireless is a new company that is charging $19 for unlimited data, voice, and texts--the catch being that you must use Wifi most of the time.

So, it's not ideal to Steve's vision, and obviously would not work for everyone, but I'm hoping Apple teams up with them at some point. It would require Apple to alter the iPhone hardware to support the "Hybrid Calling" feature (intelligently switching between VoIP and cell) which I'm not sure is something they'd be willing to do.