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

[cameronjpu]

the expensive part is building out all the towers for the end points and connecting them to the back bone fiber

Yep. As I posted earlier or elsewhere, ATT has 256 BILLION in fixed assets. So if anyone thinks Apple could just start a phone company, let that number sink in a bit.

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Yup, hard drive space in a server has the same cost model as a national or world-wide cell network. Clearly.

Don't forget the data networks that get the data to and from!

Oh wait, those are provided by the ISPs at TINY profit margins. Just the kind of business the dummies want Apple to buy into.

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2) What i said was: You may think the phone is subsidized. Its really not. Not to any large degree, at least. AT&T doesn't pay you 450 to sign up for a contract. Its more like "give you 50, shift 400 towards your 2 year contract". And, by doing that (locking yourself up) you'll probably lose more than those 50 in the end too, but thats somewhat besides the point.

However you want to look at it, I pay $100 a month for cell service and a new iPhone every year. That new iPhone would cost me $700. So if I break out the $700 and consider it spent on a phone, my service cost would be about $40 per month for data and phone. I don't know many people that would complain about that.

 

[figgnuttan]

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.

Remember Mr. Cray! Remember Steve Jobs!

In reading all these posts, ipedro has hit the nail on the head....so to speak...
I have been posting since the iPhone was introduced, that as soon as Apple has 500 million devices in the wild..(does not seem so far fetched now, as it did in 2007, that Apple will have 500 mil devices out there by 2015!); all these devices will have the ability to connect to each other. I believe they do now.
But, to completely bypass the carriers will be the ultimate disruption...
It's gonna happen.
Not if, but when.
And it's gonna be wonderful to get out from under the grip of these
manipulators: AT$T, Veriz¢n, $print.....haha...

Disruption is inevitable. It is also called evolution!

 

[vvswarup]

I have to say that if I were going to pick someone as my wireless carrier, it would be any company except Apple. Can you imagine what they would charge?

Yes I can imagine what they would charge: Whatever price the market is willing to bear.

Stop with this BS that other companies charge less in order to pass on savings to the consumer. Every company in the smartphone industry would kill to be in Apple's position.

 

[hchung]

I wonder if research in to Wifi Meshes lead to Apples interest in LTE networks and buying chunks of Patents for the standard. As I understand LTE has been designed as a mesh and allows for seamless small scale cells to be added to the mesh. Add there push for eSIM and I wonder if they are looking at rolling LTE support across the board Laptops, AE base stations, Mystical AppleTV.

Over a Radio Tech like that then an Apple iMesh would seem like a more interesting prospect.

No idea, but my gut feeling says probably not.

I'm not aware of any provisions for LTE networks being a mesh on the mobile side. Additionally, I would have expected the Nortel patent buying to be more along the lines of "hey, we helped you guys buy these patents so let's cross license the other stuff", rather than "hey, let's build a LTE mesh network."

 

[divinox]

Could've had a thousand for all i care. Please highlight his top 3 innovations for me. Innovations not already envisioned by others.

What a shocker. No one stepped up to the plate. Ok, top 2 innovations then... not envisioned by others.

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What you're first proposing is called a mesh network.

What you're proposing is also not feasible for voice communication because the latency would be awful. You'd speak a sentence, and then many seconds later, the other person would start to hear it. With custom radios (but then you can't leverage the existing devices), it could be possible to reduce some of the latency but it'll still be worse than what we have now.

However, it would also make every device have very bad battery life because the wifi would be always on AND transmitting.

The 2nd thing you're proposing is much more feasible. In fact, didn't Nintendo do this sort of partnership with McDonald's or somebody? (Nintendo DS units could connect up to hot spots for gaming over the net?)

Remember reading somewhere, not that long ago, about developments for third world regions in which signals would jump between devices. In their vision, not so much as a mesh, but rather a chain, but place a chain in a grid and... yeah. Iirc, they were talking about new antennas were being developed for this purpose.

(random trivia)

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However you want to look at it, I pay $100 a month for cell service and a new iPhone every year. That new iPhone would cost me $700. So if I break out the $700 and consider it spent on a phone, my service cost would be about $40 per month for data and phone. I don't know many people that would complain about that.

You forgot about the lock-in cost. But yeah, if you like your deal, enjoy.

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Remember Mr. Cray! Remember Steve Jobs!

In reading all these posts, ipedro has hit the nail on the head....so to speak...
I have been posting since the iPhone was introduced, that as soon as Apple has 500 million devices in the wild..(does not seem so far fetched now, as it did in 2007, that Apple will have 500 mil devices out there by 2015!); all these devices will have the ability to connect to each other. I believe they do now.
But, to completely bypass the carriers will be the ultimate disruption...
It's gonna happen.
Not if, but when.
And it's gonna be wonderful to get out from under the grip of these
manipulators: AT$T, Veriz¢n, $print.....haha...

Disruption is inevitable. It is also called evolution!

Appl€

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Yes I can imagine what they would charge: Whatever price the market is willing to bear.

Stop with this BS that other companies charge less in order to pass on savings to the consumer. Every company in the smartphone industry would kill to be in Apple's position.

Argument was, they charge less due to more intense competition. With multiple carriers we have competition within systems. With Apple as carrier we have competition between systems. Difference.