Steve Jobs Wanted iPhone on Its Own Network, Carrier-Free
When Steve Jobs first dreamed up the iPhone with his team at Apple, he didn’t want it to run on AT&T’s network. He wanted to create his own network.
So says Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Stanton, who spent a good deal of time with the late Apple CEO during the phone’s development period. Jobs wanted to replace carriers completely, Stanton says, instead using the unlicensed spectrum that Wi-Fi operates on for his phone.
“He and I spent a lot of time talking about whether synthetically you could create a carrier using Wi-Fi spectrum,” Stanton said on Monday at the Law Seminar International Event in Seattle. “That was part of his vision.”
Both Wi-Fi and cellular frequencies belong on the ultra high frequency level of the radio frequency spectrum. Wi-Fi takes up five channels of the 2.4 GHz band. Other frequency bands are allotted to various purposes and cellular providers by the FCC.
Jobs gave up his plans to create his own network in 2007, ultimately settling on a deal with AT&T.
One has to wonder how things would have shaken out in the telecommunications industry if Jobs was able to achieve this part of his vision of the best possible phone ecosystem.