When the late Apple co-founder and former Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs first dreamed up the iPhone, he did not want it to run on any network.
John Stanton, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, said that Jobs wanted to replace mobile carriers completely. Stanton, who spent a lot of time with the late Apple CEO during the development period of the iPhone, said that Jobs wanted to use Wi-Fi technology for the phone’s network.
“He and I spent a lot of time talking about whether synthetically you could create a carrier using Wi-Fi spectrum,” said Stanton at the Law Seminar International Event in Seattle, Washington. “That was part of his vision.”
Cellular and Wi-Fi frequencies belong to the ultra-high level of the radio frequency spectrum, with Wi-Fi taking up five channels of the 2.4 GHz band.
In 2007, the same year that the iPhone was launched, it was reported that Jobs gave up his plans to create a new network, closing a deal with AT&T to carry the iPhone.
Jobs was one of the people responsible for a shift in the relationship between phone manufactureres and mobile carriers. Companies like Apple and Google, which makes Android smartphones, sell software that raise revenue for the companies, revenues that might have gone to the operators.
Stanton was the first employee of mobile network McCaw Callular, the first mobile phone company that became AT&T Wireless. He then started Western Wireless, a mobile phone operator that birthed Voicestream, which was eventually acquired by Deutsche Telekom.
via: Geeky Gadgets
