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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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: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.

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

[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.

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

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.

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!

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.