Steve Jobs Wanted Apple to Become a Wireless iPhone Carrier

Tweet

Steve Jobs’ official biography hit stores three weeks ago and it revealed plenty of unknown details about his personal and professional life. However the book doesn’t seem to have revealed all the interesting hidden bits of Jobs’ career with Apple and we have one more interesting story for you today.

It looks like Apple’s co-founder and former CEO was interested to replace carriers before the company launched the original iPhone. The news comes from John Stanton, chairman of venture capital firm Trilogy Partners, who revealed during a speech he gave on Monday at the Law Seminars International event in Seattle that he “spent a lot of time talking” with Jobs between 2005 and 2007 on whether Apple could “create a carrier using Wi-Fi spectrum.”

In the past Stanton was the first employee at McCaw Cellular, the company that later became AT&T Wireless. He then founded Western Wireless, the company that started Voicestream, which later became T-Mobile after being purchased by Deutsche Telekom. In turn, Western Wireless was purchased by Alltel, which was then acquired by Verizon. So we’re not surprised to hear Jobs went to him for advice on Apple becoming a carrier.

Apparently Jobs wanted Apple to become a carrier by using the unlicensed Wi-Fi spectrum. Such a move would have allowed Apple to control all aspects related to the iPhone, at least in the U.S., from manufacturing, to selling it to consumers. Eventually that plan fell through and Apple ended up launching the iPhone exclusively with AT&T in the U.S.

Unlike other smartphone makers, Apple is the only one that is able to dictate terms to mobile operators and to fully control the smartphone experience offered to customers. No iPhone model launches with preloaded bloatware, whether in the U.S. or in other countries, which is certainly something carriers aren’t too fond of. But at the same time they can’t do very much about it either.

Moreover, Apple continued to revolutionize the mobile environment by introducing free communication tools like FaceTime video calling and iMessage instant messaging that work over Wi-Fi between a variety of iOS devices, not just the iPhone.

What do you think, will Apple become a carrier eventually?