Steve Jobs Wanted an iPhone-Only Wireless Network

jfruhlinger writes "One of the more profound ways that the iPhone changed the mobile industry was the fact that it upended the relationship between the handset maker and the wireless carrier: Apple sells many of its phones directly to customers, and in general has much more of an upper hand with carriers than most phone manufacturers. But venture capitalist John Stanton, who was friends with Steve Jobs in the years when the iPhone was in development, said the Apple CEO's initial vision was even more radical: he wanted Apple to build its own wireless network using unlicensed Wi-Fi spectrum, thus bypassing the carriers altogether."

Comments

And We'll call it

[Anonymous Coward]

iCanthearyounow

Neat

[DWMorse]

That would've freed up a lot of the load on AT&T. However, it would've made the iPhone a lot more expensive per unit... hmm. Where's the downside?

Re:Neat

[Anonymous Coward]

The walled garden would have replaced the internet.

Re:Neat

[Moheeheeko]

At the very least it would have justified the initial absurd price per phone.

Re:Neat

[ackthpt]

At the very least it would have justified the initial absurd price per phone.

Yeah, but Apple trying to be a player in a global Wi-Fi network wouldn't have happened. They succeeded because they let the phone companies bear the burden of satellites and tower contracts, fibre trunks, maintenance, etc.

Re:Neat

[ackthpt]

The walled garden would have replaced the internet.

Not his walled garden, he'd have left the door for Microsoft to walk in and do it. As inept as Redmond has been with wireless and smart phones, this would have made them. And in turn they would have dominated the market because Apple didn't learn anything from past failures.

Re:Neat

[Kenja]

And I would have stayed on the other side of the wall and chucked the occasional beer can over into the garden.

Re:Neat

[Pseudonym Authority]

AT&T, and all the other little baby Bells, have had over a hundred years and massive subsidies to build their networks; Apple would have to start from scratch.

Re:Neat

[swalve]

How many people actually bought them without contracts though? That is where the cell phone companies screwed up, by subsidizing the phones. They should have never done that- they should have made people pay installments on their bills, and then when the phone is paid off, the bill goes down. Then people would actually value technology.

Re:Neat

[marcosdumay]

Well, it is your carrier that is overselling their bandwidth. It is really not Apple's fault.

It would be Apple's fault if your phone couldn't use a signal that was there, or if ou had to hold it in a funny way to not touch the antena. That problem you describe, it's really an AT&T problem.

Re:Neat

[icebike]

The article is not that clear on which portion of networks services Jobs planned to put on his un-licensed wifi.
Clearly Calls would have to bridge the gap between his network and the POTS system somewhere.

Perhaps he was only planning for the data portion on his network. Even then, its clear he had no idea of the enormous size of the
task at hand. Even using mesh network topology the cost of APs would have been enormous.

Still you can't fault him for trying to end-run the bastards. We will eventually end up with a "dumb pipe" network from the carriers,
where they stop selling us minutes or data, and just sell bandwidth.

I suspect Google is much closer to being able to allow you to forego minutes altogether, by handling calls over data on their Google Voice service via what ever data connection you might have. I suspect the only thing holding them back is not wanting to piss off the carriers.

Re:Neat

[ackthpt]

Indeed. It was genius, even if it wasn't intentional. When a phone drops calls or has data hiccups, who gets blamed? It's ALWAYS the cell carrier. Let someone else get all the blame. Funny thing though, my AT&T service was always fine until all the iPhone users appeared and clogged stuff up. Now the wireless network is getting clogged with people talking to Siri? Argh.

This is all part of the evolution of communications.

Remember why the dotcom bubble burst? Because, despite all the brilliant ideas everyone had, the infrastructure was two copper wires, all the neat tricks to get 5Mbps were still in development, and so many technologies ran into the bandwidth wall. Now we can do 6 (or more) Mbps over copper (particularly if we live close to the switch) but the flood of iPhone traffic revealed the flimsy network for cellular was never intended for high bandwidth. Well, the carriers learned (particularly AT&T after the mess in NYC) and technology has been rapidly improving (though taking more time to roll out in some areas than others.)

Voice bandwidth needs were tiny, like 3KHz on old copper. Imagine compressing that in a digital stream. With people websurfing, streaming music and video and now mucking about with the "Cloud" for documents, spreadsheets, The Bob knows what else, that bandwith must become higher or customers go to another carrier who can hack it (a good thing to have multiple carriers in any area!)

Re:Neat

[jd2112]

Well, it is your carrier that is overselling their bandwidth. It is really not Apple's fault.

It would be Apple's fault if your phone couldn't use a signal that was there, or if ou had to hold it in a funny way to not touch the antena. That problem you describe, it's really an AT&T problem.

No. You're holding it wrong.

Re:Neat

[Caerdwyn]

Would you accept the same pricing structure for an Android phone, given that the per-unit cost to produce the phones is similar? Or are the rules different for iPhones?

Re:Neat

[similar_name]

That is where the cell phone companies screwed up, by subsidizing the phones.

They subsidize it only in the sense that you have to sign a two year contract and pay for the phone with a higher cost data plan. It's similar to how a car salesman will want to negotiate a monthly payment instead of the price of the car. Getting someone to come up from $300 to $400 on a car payment is easier than getting someone to come up $6000 on the price. It's much easier to get someone to give you an extra $25 on their cell phone bill than it is to get $600 for a phone.

Re:Neat

[fahrbot-bot]

No. You're holding it wrong.

Note to /. : Never say that to a girlfriend, no matter how true.

Re:Neat

[tlhIngan]

Indeed. It was genius, even if it wasn't intentional. When a phone drops calls or has data hiccups, who gets blamed? It's ALWAYS the cell carrier. Let someone else get all the blame. Funny thing though, my AT&T service was always fine until all the iPhone users appeared and clogged stuff up. Now the wireless network is getting clogged with people talking to Siri? Argh.

Well, the dropped call/AT&T sucky thing really did have the iPhone to blame partially.

You see, there's a control channel used to establish and tear down connections (voice/data), and also used for signalling and messaging (e.g., making/receiving a phone call, SMS).

The iPhone was extremely aggressive with its data connections. The instant data transfer stopped and there was no more data forthcoming, the immediately tore down the data connection. When data needed to be transferred, it established it again. If you're browsing the web, it basically meant everytime you visit a page, the page load creates a new connection, then when the page has finished, the connection is torn down.

What crippled AT&T was not running out of bandwidth for voice or data, but running out of bandwidth in the control channel. When the control channel was saturated, it means that requests get dropped. If you're being handed off to another cell, and your phone can't contact the tower in time to complete the handoff (because it can't get a word in edgewise on the control channel), boom, the call is dropped. And thus, AT&T service started degrading for everyone because basically all the iPhones overloaded the towers.

Europe and Asia didn't see this because all the texting that went on meant they saw control channel saturation happen many years ago, so they started doing dynamic bandwidth allocation - if the control channel is getting saturated, it allocates another channel to free up bandwidth.

The same thing happened to T-mobile when an IM app and Android apparently had timers that worked destructively - the IM app caused Android to release the data channel because it was idle "long enough", just after which it did a data transfer which required re-establishing the data link. So T-Mobile suffered from phones dropping and re-establishing the data connection again causing tower overload.

Incidentally, the iPhone did this to save power - holding a data connection open takes battery, so if you can drop it immediately, you can put the baseband into low power and save a significant amount of power.

AT&T was not prepared for the iPhone. Some people got bills that came in big boxes because every time the phone opened and closed the data connection, an entry was recorded and faithfully printed out, leading to phone bills that were thousands of pages long. Since it was unlimited, all it did was kill some extra trees.

Re:Neat

[nevillethedevil]

No. You're holding it wrong.

Note to /. : Never say that to a girlfriend, no matter how true.

I don't think that's going to be too big a problem around here

Re:Neat

[jo_ham]

You missed off "now that Apple is at the top".

In the years leading up to this state, market cap was one of the metrics used to bash Apple's "weak position" and one of the many reasons it was "dying".

Now that it's where it is, suddenly it seems market cap is meaningless. Funny that.

Re:Neat

[tlhIngan]

So you claim the iPhone was the first phone to exhibit this behavior?

Because if not, your point is moot.

It was the first to be that aggressive about it. That, coupled with the texting craze sweeping North America and the control channel fills up quickly.

And technically, the iPhone was the first to show the behaviour because the iPhone used the Infineon chipset - something most North American phones avoided because the chipset is more tuned to Asian and European networks, because of its aggressiveness and control channel utilization. For North American phones, it was generally required to use a Qualcomm chipset which wasn't so aggressive, but also meant it consumed more power. Remember, the iPhone was purely designed by Apple - AT&T/Cingular had zero input in the matter (they would've protested the use of the Infineon chipset).

For a comparison, note how the European networks and Asian networks fared. Heck, even the Antennagate iPhone 4 problem was virtually non-existent.

Haven't the mobile data networks been packet-switched for quite some time now?

Irrelevant, actually. In a cellphone, data channels (and voice) are allocated dynamically and last as long as you want. You basically "open" a data channel (which tells the carrier you intend to send data and set up all the billing and handling information). Then you can send and receive data at will. If you have no data to send, you give your timeslot to someone else.

For EDGE and GPRS, the system used unused voice channels, which is why these systems disallow simultaneous voice and data (because to support it requires supporting two upstream channels and two downstream channels - i.e., two receivers and transmitters plus control transceiver).

For 3G, the system is far more complex, but from the baseband side, you open up data channels (PDP contexts), the more you open, the faster the transfer (basically channel bonding like behaviour).

But each time you do this, you create control channel traffic as you open and tear down these data connections. And whilst having the data channel open, the baseband consumes more power because it's in active communications with the tower, ready to send and receive data.

If you want to compare it with WiFi, think of the "no data channel established" state as WiFi disabled - it's powered off. Then you want to transfer data, so you create the data channel, which is basically turning it on and associating it with the access point. It's not transferring data, but it's taking more power now as the module is consuming standby power, ready to respond to packets for it. The highest power mode happens when data is transferred, because the Rx and Tx are actively engaged.

A "normal" device associates with the AP, and leaves the connection idle. It takes power, but it also means it's ready to go in an instant.

If you had a battery-challenged device, you might try to do an iPhone and leave the WiFi off as much as possible to save power, then turn it on and associate it with an AP when you need to transfer data, then turn it off again. You'll find the AP load is increased and if enough devices do it, the AP can be so busy handling association/deassociation requests that it can't actually transfer useful data. (The analogy fails because WiFi uses one channel for both management and data transfer, while cellular uses multiple).

Which would have worked...

[ackthpt]

Apple to build its own wireless network using unlicensed Wi-Fi spectrum, thus bypassing the carriers altogether."

Which would have worked, if you were only willing to go about with something like the iTouch. While popular, the evolution to hand-held computer, camera, game-device and phone became a bit mostly on the latter.

I visualised such a network years before the iPhone and realise how much it wouldn't have happened. There was some network in the SF Bay Area meant to do something similar, but you had to be paying to be on it and these sorts of things didn't come cheap. Even taking advantage of economies of scale, you'd be running up against those who own the cell towers. My cousin is in that racket and don't underestimate the costs and other problems inherent there. Going with cellular was the only way it was going to work.

Re:Which would have worked...

[Sir_Sri]

It's basically building another wireless network from scratch, regardless of the spectrum space. Apple has the warchest, it could certainly do that today, but in 2005 or 2006 to get 20 or 30 billion dollars would have A: given up the plan and B: been completely unthinkable for Apple. On top of all that you have enormous chicken and egg problems while the whole thing is getting built.

On one hand, who wouldn't want their own wireless network to stick to the big carriers (I'm in canada, our carriers are equally bad, if not worse than the US ones), but it's a very risky game to play.

Re:Which would have worked...

[wvmarle]

The current wireless networks also have been built up from scratch.

And that was in a time that electronics were far less common, when the use was less defined, when most people didn't have a mobile phone nor felt the need for it, yet they did it and succeeded to build out to cover complete nations. Including vast, almost unpopulated areas. Nowadays there aren't many places in the world that do not have any mobile phone network available.

If Apple or any other company were to do something like that today, they would have to start the same way. Build up in the major cities first, then cover the motorways between them, move on to the secondary cities and small towns, and finally cover the countryside.

Apple may be able to do this: they have a large customer base that they could migrate to their network, guaranteeing customers (and income) from the get-go.

A company like Google may be able to do this, too: they already own data networks all over the world, and have the cash for it.

But sure it's not easy, and it's going to require a major investment. And the existing carriers will do whatever they can to frustrate such an effort of course.

Re:Which would have worked...

[Holi]

I think your talking about Ricochet. I used it for awhile and the major problem was using it while moving, you would keep dropping the connection if you moved too fast. Cars were definitely out. I believe they fixed that issue before they went away.

Smart Guy

[iluvcapra]

Clearly a wise idea, but I wonder how he would have run a cell company different. How would rates be structured? Would the incumbents let iPhones roam on their networks or would they try to freeze-out the interloper? The mind boggles...

One of the more profound ways that the iPhone changed the mobile industry was the fact that it upended the relationship between the handset maker and the wireless carrier

It really only upended the relationship between Apple and its wireless carriers. Most phones are still marketed and sold the old-fashioned way, and Google doesn't have magic open-source-fairy dust that prevents carriers from selling crappy phones on very carrier-friendly terms.

Re:Smart Guy

[mirix]

Would the incumbents let iPhones roam on their networks or would they try to freeze-out the interloper?

I doubt the phones would even have been capable of roaming on other networks, had they been designed for this chunk of spectrum. Certainly it would be possible to support both, but at more cost, more size, and more power consumption.

Re:Smart Guy

[bennomatic]

Of course, if its fees had been structured like its other services it might have been free or $25/year.

Re:Smart Guy

[zippthorne]

What other services? Services like mobile me, which you used to be able to use to sync your contacts and stuff over the internet, which should've been a built-in utility (mac's already come with rsync....), and at best a dynamic ip lookup service akin to dyndns, but instead was structured as an online service where your data actually passed through apple servers so they could charge $99/ year?

That kind of cheap service?

technically unfeasable

[JeffSh]

This would not have been feasible, which is why it didn't work. the idea of a carrier pushing through a wifi network with enough coverage space is laughable. The 3g/4g wireless spectrum operates entirely different than wifi because wifi is limited in many ways..

The point is, we can all sit around and throw ideas and himhaw back and forth, but if things don't pass engineering/financial spec the don't get done. Applauding Jobs as a visionary for an idea that failed on technical and financial merit is kinda stupid.

Re:technically unfeasable

[ackthpt]

This would not have been feasible, which is why it didn't work. the idea of a carrier pushing through a wifi network with enough coverage space is laughable. The 3g/4g wireless spectrum operates entirely different than wifi because wifi is limited in many ways..

The point is, we can all sit around and throw ideas and himhaw back and forth, but if things don't pass engineering/financial spec the don't get done. Applauding Jobs as a visionary for an idea that failed on technical and financial merit is kinda stupid.

The success was in the not doing it.

Re:technically unfeasable

[PhrstBrn]

This would not have been feasible, which is why it didn't work. the idea of a carrier pushing through a wifi network with enough coverage space is laughable. The 3g/4g wireless spectrum operates entirely different than wifi because wifi is limited in many ways..

The point is, we can all sit around and throw ideas and himhaw back and forth, but if things don't pass engineering/financial spec the don't get done. Applauding Jobs as a visionary for an idea that failed on technical and financial merit is kinda stupid.

The success was in the not doing it.

Why don't you have your own little success by not posting?

lack of understanding

[NynexNinja]

On a good day, Wifi (802.11a/b/g/n) can travel about 900 feet between devices. Even with a directional antenna and some good hardware, you're looking at a maximum of about one mile transmitting distance between devices... Not sure how you could have any kind of sustainable network within these limited parameters.

Re:lack of understanding

[icebraining]

Well:

1) Charge for access to online services (Apple Store, iTunes, etc).
2) Offer free service to anyone who agrees to "share" their home wired internet connection by installing a special Apple router, which provides service to any i* devices in the area

Where I live, our biggest ISP is doing something similar: everyone who signs up gets a Fonera router (unless they opt-out) and shares their unlimited connection with other clients. Now, the ISP can advertise "Free Wifi everywhere" as a feature to attract new clients. Win-win.

Re:lack of understanding

[93 Escort Wagon]

On a good day, Wifi (802.11a/b/g/n) can travel about 900 feet between devices. Even with a directional antenna and some good hardware, you're looking at a maximum of about one mile transmitting distance between devices... Not sure how you could have any kind of sustainable network within these limited parameters.

You're missing the point (ironic, given the subject line you chose), perhaps because of the misleading Slashdot title. This wasn't about using Wi-Fi or the 2.4/5 GHz band. It was about using unlicensed parts of the EM spectrum - some of which is quite suitable for longer-distance communication (and is already used for such). The "wi-fi" part is only referencing the fact that 802.11 also uses a section of unlicensed spectrum.

Huh

[TheRaven64]

I wrote an article (for a now-defunct tech news startup) predicting almost exactly this model, being built on top of the existing iChat voice / video architecture so you'd get free calls to Mac users and other iPhone users and only pay when calling a POTS number. I wondered in the article if it there was enough WiFi coverage for it to be able to compete with real mobile phones, even including some kind of mesh networking (which would impact the battery life). Then the iPhone came out and was a conventional phone. Good to know in hindsight that I was able to predict was Steve Jobs was thinking, even if I failed to predict what he did.

Re:Apple's Future

[Alrescha]

"Every thing they do is so closed and exclusive. They never extended a hand to the open source community."

I'm sorry, you're terribly confused. Or a troll:

http://www.opensource.apple.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)

http://www.webkit.org/

http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/12/apple-joins-openjdk-to-open-source-mac-os-x-java-technology/

http://alac.macosforge.org/

Etc.

A.

This is what I'll miss about SJ...

[rAiNsT0rm]

Steve wasn't the greatest engineer, designer, or technologist but what he did do was think of what he saw as perfection and not waiver from it. This is the one thing I think all of us in tech really lost with his passing. Not even that what he came up with was always the best but the fact that he did dare to dream and then force it to fruition. So much of what we use and do came from his efforts even if they were taken or altered/improved upon.

That is a very impossible thing to pass on or keep going by someone else and I really hope we don't begin a period of stagnation and minor iterative changes or updates because we seriously all lose. Linux, MS, or Mac user.

It's The Standards, Stupid

[Nom du Keyboard]

More proof that Apple doesn't believe in interoperable standards.

Now who is surprised?

Re:It's The Standards, Stupid

[Anubis IV]

How would that be proof of anything? You've cited a single data point (which only exists as an unsubstantiated rumor) as proof of a trend that's allegedly endemic within the company.

I won't deny that they do use some standards that are not interoperable (e.g. their iBooks format), but most of their devices are designed to play nice with the major formats, protocols, and devices out there already, and many of their biggest protocols or formats are either shared or are available to other companies or developers interested in making their devices play with Apple's network or devices. For instance, Bluetooth and wi-fi are the same as everyone else's, AirPlay is available for device manufacturers to license, the AAC files iTunes uses run on a variety of players, their work on h.264 went on to become the industry standard, and their devices sync with OSes other than their own and a plethora of online services besides their own. That covers wireless communication, audio, video, and the cloud, and it'd be trivial to list off dozens of other industry standard file formats that they open up or export, just the same as the other major OSes.

If you had said it was proof of a proprietary solution to a problem, I'd have gone for that, but to suggest they're not interested in interoperability is either a misuse of the term or a choice to ignore almost everything they did from when Steve Jobs returned through to the present. I make no claims of them having embraced interoperability prior to that point, but since 1997 or so, they've made a number of strides towards making things as painless for consumers as possible, and that meant making their devices work with devices they hadn't made.

Re:It's The Standards, Stupid

[R3d M3rcury]

AirPlay is available for device manufacturers to license [...]

And, gee, it's not our fault that all these other companies use DLNA, which provides essentially the same capability and was available years before Apple came up with AirPlay.

Also, Apple is a big believer in interoperability when they're behind. Remember back when iTunes supported third-party music players? They come out with the iPod and *poof*, exit third-party player support.

removing the middleman

[v1]

this isn't even slightly surprising. the carrier is the #1 obstacle between Apple and their iPhone. It's the one aspect they have very little control over, (or that even has a bit of control over them) and I'm sure anyone at Apple would love to see an independent network to run their iPhones on.

Right now what does someone do if they get a lot of dropped calls? blame Apple. Sometimes it's Apple's fault like with the antennas, but Apple fixed that, because they could. What now? still getting dropped calls? AT&T sucks? There's really nothing Apple can do about that. Apple is completely dependent on the carriers to make their product work well, or work at all for that matter. Any business that has one of their flagship products held by the balls by a company they have little to no control over is naturally going to be looking for alternatives. It's not good when your company is at another company's mercy.

Myopic

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the more profound ways that the iPhone changed the mobile industry was the fact that it upended the relationship between the handset maker and the wireless carrier: Apple sells many of its phones directly to customers, and in general has much more of an upper hand with carriers than most phone manufacturers.

Maybe in the United States, but in the rest of the world it's always been like this.

Re:Apple's Future

[Anonymous Coward]

apple's webkit is just a fork of KDE's KHTML

Seems to me like you're the one trying to rewrite history.

http://opensource.apple.com/

The depth of delusion on Slashdot surprises me to this day.

Anybody who's used Chrome or the web browser on Android has benefited from Apple's work on WebKit. But the zealots will try to rewrite history on that too.

Re:Apple's Future

[Trolan]

OpenSource for other projects, but not in the development of any of their products. Not if they could help it anyway.

Let's see...
- Darwin Streaming Server
- mDNSResponder
- ALAC
- Calendar and Contacts Server
- libdispatch / Grand Central Dispatch
- etc.

http://www.macosforge.org/ is where the more generally useful items outside of OSX wind up. FreeBSD picked up the libdispatch items and ran with it.

SJ vs BG

[y2imm]

The more I learn about Steve Jobs, the better Bill Gates looks.

Re:technically^H politicaly unfeasable?

[grcumb]

With enough devices on the market, altogether with advances in Ad-hoc networks, this may be possible (I think there are still tweaks to the routing protocols, which I think are pure madness).

I posted something about this just this morning, linking to an older article I wrote. In a nutshell, between advances in wireless networking protocols and approaches, improvements in mesh networking and new developments in end-to-end voice and data encryption, we can reasonably begin thinking about creating telco-less networks.

However, I see two main groups against such thing:

1. The carriers, that may lose a big chunk of customers that don't mind no having complete availability.

2. But most importantly, the government, which, besides of opposing to this, may also be worried about not being able to track users so easily and tap on conversations, as they do now.

So more than "technically", I think is politically unfeasible.

I reposted the article because of the SOPA fiasco currently playing itself out in the US Congress. Network ownership (or, more precisely, the affiliation between network owners and so-called content owners) is one of the main obstacles to the continued development of the Internet as we know it. The only way around the draconian content restrictions being proposed by media and tech companies is to operate a network that doesn't rely on their good graces.

I don't have any illusions whatsoever that a Jobs-inspired Apple network would have been a Free Information playground. Quite the contrary. It would most likely have resembled a digital Disneyland, with cutesy characters allowing you to do anything you like, as long as it's what they intended you to do in the first place.

Nonetheless, the idea of a Network Of Devices is sound. I just wish someone with both the necessary resources and a sane understanding of freedom were in a position to begin creating it. Unfortunately, I'm not sure such a creature exists....

perhaps Google had similar idea

[peter303]

Google wanted to spend billions on spectrum. Google CEO was on Apple's board for a while.

Even more radical.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

His original iDea was to create an iNternet that would work only with iDevices. But he was thwarted.

1995 paged, wants its Apple data network back.

[cstacy]

Apple used to have their own data network for their devices, about 17 years ago.
I remember using Apple devices on airplanes back then.

I thought it was the 80s, but I guess it was the 90s based on this press release I Googled:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/PAGENET+TO+PROVIDE+WIRELESS+NETWORK+SERVICES+FOR+APPLE+PRODUCT-a015985515

Re:technically^H politicaly unfeasable?

[grcumb]

How is it sound, exactly?

'Sound' in the sense that we've solved some of the key problems that kept this idea in the realm of the impossible. Now, it's merely improbably difficult. 8^)

If I need to make a call, I need to make sure someone else is in the area with their cell phone turned on and willing to let me drain their battery?

Agreed. Which makes it problematical for a lot of the continental US. But it's not so impractical in Korea, Japan, China, Indonesia, India, Egypt - countless other locales. Which, not coincidentally, represent the largest area of growth in wireless networks right now.

The battery issue is another kettle of fish. I can only hand-wave at the moment and assume that improvements in power storage and efficiency will continue for at least a decade, which would render this issue manageable, even if it doesn't solve it entirely.

How do you do long distance?

Assuming a data-only network (i.e. VOIP as the sole means of voice communication), you don't even think about it.

But I think what you're really asking is: How do I communicate with people on other networks; and how do I handle billing for inter-carrier calls (which is an astoundingly ugly and byzantine process)?

The short answer is: You don't.

The slightly longer answer becomes clear when you phrase the question thusly: How do I send email to someone who's on another Internet? Back in the days of AOL, Compuserve, Delphi and co. this used to be a real issue. Once the Internet asserted itself, however, the whole thing just sorted itself out.

To sum up, operating a carrier-less network allows you to dispose of a lot of the structures that the carriers have built into their data networks.

But notwithstanding what I've just writting, your point still holds that there are significant -show-stopping- issues that still need to be addressed. I don't deny that. I do, however, feel that these are finite technical problems, difficult but not insurmountable.

Unrealistic Expectations.

[mosb1000]

Thanks to the way phones are sold, people have unrealistic expectations about the price of cellphones. Of course, $600 is right in line with what a smartphone actually costs. It is basically a full fledged computer with a built in cellphone after all. But people lose sight of that when you sell them for $100 and then subsidize it by raising wireless subscription rates. The same computing hardware is in an iPhone 4S and an iPad 2, the only difference is the screen and the battery. Yet for some reason people pay $630 for the cellular enabled iPad 2 but only $200 for the 4S.

Hiding true cost from customers is how the economy (doesn't) work these days, unfortunately. And for some reason there are a lot of people wondering why everything seems to be falling apart.

Non-iPhone network.

[DarwinSurvivor]

That's funny, last year I had an "everything but iPhone/Pad/Pod" network. All you have to do is add a backtick ` and none of them can connect. The password keyboard has NO backtick on iProducts, even though every other virtual keyboard on it does. I guess you might have been able to use a bluetooth keyboard, but few people have those.

Re:Non-iPhone network.

[__aagbwg300]

There is a back tick key. If you hold your finger on the single quote button, you get a selection of four quote-like characters: ', ’,‘, and `. I'm not saying your network filter didn't work, it just kept people off who don't know how to use their idevices. (Sent from my iPhone, of course.)

it upended the relationship alright

[t2t10]

One of the more profound ways that the iPhone changed the mobile industry was the fact that it upended the relationship between the handset maker and the wireless carrier:

It sure did! Instead of a big, evil corporation screwing their customers, charging inflated prices, and delivering a product prone to failures... we now have another big, evil corporation screwing their customers, charging inflated prices, and delivering a product prone to failures!

Only in US

[IrquiM]

"One of the more profound ways that the iPhone changed the mobile industry was the fact that it upended the relationship between the handset maker and the wireless carrier."

Most of the world already had this

When did we start talking about Wal-Mart?

[Medievalist]

The extent to which Apple didn't learn from past failures is evident from the fact that they are now the largest company in the world.

Neither Microsoft nor Apple are even in the top 100 largest companies in the world.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2011/

Cats seem very large to mice, I suppose, so we technical types tend to overestimate the power of tech companies.

Re:When did we start talking about Wal-Mart?

[Medievalist]

AH, thanks for the clarification. In other words Apple at one point was floating on a higher bubble!

As a native English speaker, I'm more used to people using "biggest" to reflect some measure that can be seen as physically largest, instead of a completely virtual market value. You could measure that by number of employees, number of square feet occupied by employees, or physical volume of product being shipped, or any other physical resource measurement, but I have rarely heard "expensive" equated with "big" before.

It seems at bit contrived... at first! However, on second thought, measuring "bigness" by "market value" is perfectly cromulent, and contains inherent truthiness. We've all heard about the reality distortion field, so it certainly makes sense in that context.

Re:When did we start talking about Wal-Mart?

[Medievalist]

Why can't you just say Apple has the highest market value?

That's what your link says, after all. There's no column labeled "largeness" or "bigosity" in there. I don't get why anyone would want to redefine "large" to mean something completely unrelated to size. Is this some Freudian thing to do with penis envy? I honestly don't understand at all.