Steve Jobs Originally Wanted iPhone on its own Network

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, says 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 Wi-Fi spectrum. Jobs would not have been the first executive to think about how Wi-Fi could literally replace use of mobile networks for mobile voice and data. There was a fair amount of such speculation in the late 1990s and earlier 2000s. Wi-fi for mobile service?

By about 2005, most began to see Wi-Fi as a complementary access alternative to mobile service. Wi-Fi becomes complementary Republic Wireless, the new mobile service provider, is the latest example of that line of thinking. 


For ubiquity, no service provider yet has shown an ability to completely displace mobile networks. 
On the other hand, for consumers, most important personal devices are equipped, or increasingly will be equipped, with Wi-Fi capability. 


So even though it remains a challenge to design a mobile phone's connectivity around Wi-Fi-only connections, the in-home environment is becoming a "Wi-Fi mostly" sort of environment. 

Steve Jobs wanted iPhone on its own network

Future of Fixed-Line Telephony?

It is clear fixed line telephone services in the United States are beginning a rapid decline, with users favoring mobile phones and computer-enabled telephony, some would argue. Bill Reidway, Neustar Vice President of Numbering Services Product Management Reidway, is among them.


“As the fixed line network begins to fall by the wayside” explained Reidway, “the notion of telephone numbers associated with a specific geography falls with it.” Neustar’s Vision on the Future of Telephony That doesn't mean numbers are less important, just useful in a new way. 


Reidway also explained that although telephone numbers no longer have rigid location sensitive significance, users still generally prefer to associate their phone numbers with a location, and that is particularly important for business users. While it is certainly possible for a business or individual to use an area code, or even country code from any point in the world, he believes an area code “still says something about the identity behind the number.”


One might argue that, over time, the role of a fixed network will change, with users relying on fixed networks for some services and features that are superior to wireless, including bandwidth, cost and features. Business users are likely to derive higher value from fixed line voice than consumers will, for example. 


Most popular personal consumer devices will sport Wi-Fi capability, for example, meaning that "untethered" connectivity is becoming more important over time. 


Fixed networks, in other words, will become the primary broadband connection used inside homes. Given the existence of mobile data caps, it will make sense for most consumers to switch even their mobile devices to Wi-Fi connections when at home.

Most consumer devices use, will use, Wi-Fi

Republic Wireless Readies $20/Month Unlimited Mobile Service

Republic Wireless is a new mobile phone service from Bandwidth.com that will be launching on November 8, with some features some users will find compelling. Republic Wireless teaser

Among those features is the price, said to be $20 per month, with unlimited talk, texting and data. The plan is also touted as truly “unlimited” with no bandwidth caps. $20 a month unlimited smart phone service?


Republic is a mobile virtual network operator, but is integrating Wi-Fi connectivity and software that will switch connections between the mobile network and the Wi-Fi network automatically.

The hybrid service essentially will default to Wi-Fi whenever possible, and use the mobile network only when Wi-Fi is not available. 


That should translate into lower calling costs for end users, since Bandwidth.com will be able to use fixed network VoIP much of the time.

Public Wi-Fi usage

In all likelihood, pricing will set at levels much lower than what users typically expect from mobile service plans, and without need for a contract. Republic Wireless


Users will have to buy a new device specially created by Republic Wireless, which undoubtedly will prove a barrier to some users. But $20 a month, with unlimited data access, texting and calling, is going to be attractive to lots of people.



Smart phone owners are using Wi-Fi hot spots in increasing numbers, both in the home and out in public.  A recent study by WeFi shows an uptick in smart phone data consumption, much of it by users on the Android platform, for example. That might explain why the Republic Wireless service will use Android devices.  Smart phone Wi-Fi usage

New Verizon Policy on Heavy Users, Congested Towers

Verizon Wireless has instituted a new network management policy that some will call “throttling,” while others might say simply represents a more-nuanced way of managing network congestion.

The new plan affects what Verizon says is about five percent of Verizon’s user base, specifically those users of 3G services that use 2 Gbytes of more of data each month, from congested cell sites. The rules do not apply to users of the new 4G network, though. The easiest solution is simply to use 4G. It’s a better experience anyway. New Verizon usage scheme

One suspects that users are capable of making rational choices about their services, and also will rapidly adopt the “default to Wi-Fi strategy.” Most people already seem capable of quickly grasping the advantages.

Some 64 percent of smart phone consumers surveyed by Devicescape use Wi-Fi hotspots at least once a day. Most smart phone owners who use Wi-Fi also use it on the road.  The study showed 90 percent of those users report accessing Wi-Fi both at home and on the road. Smart phone users use Wi-Fi often

Of those who use Wi-Fi outside their home or office, most (24 percent) connect at a cafe or coffee shop, 17.3 percent at a hotel, and 15 percent at a school campus. See Facing data caps, consumers keep turning to Wi-Fi.

Historically, mobiles haven’t been used excessively for data connections. Average mobile data consumption increased from about 90 MBytes per month during the first quarter of 2009 to 298 MBytes per month during the first quarter of 2010, according to Nielsen.

This represents a year-over-year increase of approximately 230 percent, though.  While this increase is substantial, in the first quarter of 2009 more than a third of smart phone subscribers used less than 1 MByte of data per month and usage has dropped to a quarter in the first quarter of 2010.

About 20 million current smart phone users are hardly using any data.

But there is a reason frameworks for managing bandwidth use are important. As mobile data consumption continues to grow, the usage pattern is starting to resemble fixed-line patterns, and that is a problem for all mobile service providers, as there is not now, and never will be any way for mobile providers to match the bandwidth, or cost of bandwidth, that a fixed network provider can offer.

There is a telling statistic in Cisco's Visual Networking Index, namely that as mobile broadband users have rapidly grown, their usage pattern rapidly has assumed the familiar pattern seen in the fixed-line part of the business.

Consider heavy usage patterns. The top one percent of mobile data subscribers generate over 20 percent of mobile data traffic, down from 30 percent just a year ago. That 29-point swing in just 12 months suggests that as more "typical" users adopt mobile broadband, they bring behaviors much different from those of early mobile broadband adopters, namely less-intensive consumption.

Cisco also reports that mobile data traffic over the last year also now matches the 1:20 ratio that has been true of fixed networks for several years (one percent of users generate or consume 20 percent of total transferred bytes). Visual networking index

Similarly, the top 10 percent of mobile data subscribers now generate approximately 60 percent of mobile data traffic, down from 70 percent at the beginning of the year.

All of those instances of "reversion toward the mean" are driven by the broader adoption by "typical" users of smart phone service. That noted, average smart phone usage doubled in 2010. The average amount of traffic per smart phone in 2010 was 79 Mbytes per month, up from 35 Mbytes per month in 2009.

HTC Incredible Users Significant Wi-Fi Hotspot Users

Though Apple devices continue to dominate the top 10 devices using public Wi-Fi hotspots, the HTC Droid Incredible has become the most popular Android device, followed closely by the Motorola Droid.

Both the Android and RIM platforms increased 1.2 and .07 percent respectively, while Apple's platform declined 2.3 percent in the second quarter of 2010.

Android might or might not be viewed as representing the most-successful class of "iPhone killer" devices. What seems clear is that it is seen by many users as a workable alternative, and is used in much the same way as an iPhone is.

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Public Wi-Fi Business Model is Changing

About 10 years ago, there were serious debates about whether public Wi-Fi hotspot networks could become a viable alternative to mobile broadband services. That might sound odd now, but it was a somewhat serious issue back then.

The more-immediate problem for public Wi-Fi businesses, though, was the business plan itself. It proved tough to entice enough users to pay for such "out and about" connections.

What ultimately happened was that public Wi-Fi access became, in part, a niche service for traveling workers and in part a retention tool for major cable and telco broadband providers.

In its latter configuration, fixed broadband customers got "no extra charge" Wi-Fi hotspot access as an amenity for being a customer. The indirect business model was enhanced customer retention.

These days, another evolution is occurring. In addition to helping service providers retain their existing customers, public Wi-Fi now is becoming a way to defray mobile network investment, shift huge amounts of traffic to the landline network and create more-affordable ways to support bandwidth-intensive services such as video.

To some extent, Wi-Fi hotspot availability also creates a platform for service creation, in particular services mobile operators want to support, but not too much. Mobile VoIP is one example.

AT&T, for example, allows mobile VoIP on the iPhone, but only from hot spots.

Verizon Wireless, on the other hand, takes the opposite approach and only enables use of its embedded Skype application on the wireless network, not Wi-Fi.

Either way, public Wi-Fi allows creation of services in a way that competes less directly with mobile voice, for example.

The point is that the public Wi-Fi business model is changing, again. Where one might have argued that the business model was "fixed broadband customer retention and acquisition," the additional, and possibly more-important model, is as a major wireless access method and service platform.

Wi-Fi Now Crucial for Mobile Networks

A new study by Coda Research Consultancy predicts that Wi-Fi enabled mobile handset penetration in the United States will grow at 25 percent compound average growth rates between 2009 and 2015.

Most of that growth will come as smartphone sales pick up, and the Wi-Fi capability will be crucial for mobile service providers attempting to maintain high quality service. Since much data demand is created by smartphone users, networks can offload quite a lot of traffic to Wi-Fi-connected fixed networks using the Wi-Fi capability.



It's a "win-win" situation. Users often will discover their devices perform faster on Wi-Fi, while mobile service providers can conserve capital investment. Some users will find Wi-Fi helps them manage their bandwidth caps. Also, Wi-Fi-equiped smartphones will make fixed connections at home more valuable as well.

Wi-Fi's Business Model: Not What Was Expected

New technologies sometimes wind up being used in ways not originally envisioned. It might sound odd today, but there was a time when public Wi-Fi was seen by some as a replacement for fixed broadband used by residential customers, or as a competitor to wireless 3G networks.

These days, with a couple of notable exceptions, public Wi-Fi lives by indirect revenue models. It is an amenity for retail or hospitality operations that make money some other way. Coffee, food, lodging or memberships are some of the revenue models.

The notable exception is "for fee" Wi-Fi in global markets where the cost of 3G access is very high, making a for-fee Wi-Fi connection a better deal.

In recent years, the typical revenue model for public Wi-Fi has been that it is a valuable amenity for sales of fixed broadband connections and retention of customers. More recently, public Wi-Fi has become an important component of the value of some smartphones, which can use hotspots for VoIP even when it is not allowed on the 3G networks.

AT&T, for example, says that its customers made 25.4 million Wi-Fi connections in the third quarter of 2009, exceeding the 20 million connections made in all of 2008 and nearly equaling the 25.6 million connections made in the first half of 2009.

Wi-Fi usage has been increasing significantly each quarter, up from 5.2 million connections in the third quarter of 2008. Smartphones and other Wi-Fi enabled devices are the reason, AT&T says.

For the first time, the number of Wi-Fi connections made by smartphones and other mobile devices in the third quarter surpassed connections from laptops, AT&T notes.

About 60 percent of all AT&T Wi-Fi connections were made from mobile devices, up from 49 percent in the second quarter of 2009, AT&T says.

Public Wi-Fi seems destined to play a bigger role in the smartphone market going forward, as it is a great way to offload video and other bandwidth-intensive applications from the mobile network to the fixed network.

So aside from its value as a feature that supports an indirect revenue model for retailers, it is a value-enhancing way for service providers to differentiate and add value to their mobile and fixed broadband services.

In the future, it likely will assume a greater role in allowing mobile networks to better manage bandwidth. None of those initially were thought of as the "value" of public Wi-Fi.

Smartphones are Changing the Wi-Fi Hotspot Business

Smartphones are changing the nature of the hotspot business, it now appears. Originally envisioned as a way to provide "outside the home" and "outside the office" connections for laptop and notebook PC users, hotspots now are becoming important sources of broadband connections for smartphones.

One example: iPass, which used to focus on managing PC authentication processes for traveling enterprise workers, now finds it is focusing more attention on managing authentication processes for enterprise smartphones, says Rick Bilodeau iPass VP.

"Smartphones are the new thing," he says. "Now it is smartphones and Blackberries." The software is available for BlackBerry, Symbian and iPhone at the moment, and iPass is watching the Android, though it hasn't seen enterprise demand for that device yet.

As a firm that manages broadband access for hundreds of Fortune 2000 companies, iPass has to manage connections created on hundreds of global networks, but now scores of smartphone devices as well.

To make that process easier, it created an "Open Device Framework," a standardized interface to iPass client software that allows enterprises to write their own XML scripts for the specific dongles, phones and other devices they want to support.

The company also now preconfigures Mi-Fi routers, loading SSID information directly into the boxes before they are delivered to their users, for example. The iPass log-on software also can be preloaded. "We're first to do this, we think," says Bilodeau.

ODF is available now and the Mi-Fi featuers will be available in December 2009, he says.

Good Reason to Buy a Wi-Fi-Equipped Smart Phone

On Dec. 11, JetBlue Airways Corp. will begin a trial of free in-flight e-mail and messaging using in-cabin Wi-Fi. If passengers respond positively, the airline said it could install the service across its entire fleet, according to Citigroup analyst Jim Suva.

The in-flight Wi-Fi service will be welcomed by many notebook PC users and owners of Wi-Fi-equipped BlackBerrys or iPhones, since some people travel with a BlackBerry, iPhone or some other smart phone and leave their notebooks at home. That's not me, but other people do it. The relevant BlackBerry devices include the 8210, 8820 and 8320 Curve. You are out of luck if you have service from at&t, though, as at&t blocks Wi-Fi usage on its Curve. T-Mobile supports Wi-Fi on the Curve.

Of course, there apparently is just one single aircraft involved in the JetBlue test. But if it proves popular, and one suspects it will, we can hope other carriers eventually will move to equip their cabins for Wi-Fi.

Of course, the danger is that people will start using VoIP over Wi-Fi, even if cabins aren't equipped for mobile phone use, an idea that many of us absolutely detest. As annoying as mobile phone etiquette now is, it will be unbearable when you can't escape the audio pollution created by your seat mates.

Help Us Figure Out What We Can Do with Wi-Fi: BT

To stimulate development of new applications using Wi-Fi hotspots, BT is running a contest with a £1000 prize for the best new Symbian-based mobile application. To enter the challenge, an application should make use of the device's Wi-Fi connection for some of its operation. Applications will be judged on the innovative use they make of Wi-Fi connectivity, how easy they are to use, and their commercial potential. There are smaller prizes for runners-up. The challenge is open from October 16 and the closing date for entries is January 16, 2008.

EarthLink Pays Houston Fine; Might Be Off the Hook

EarthLink is paying the city of Houston a $5 million penalty fee for missing its first deadline in building the city's municipal Wi-Fi network. The payment might ultimately let EarthLink off the hook for the entire network build, though technically the payment buys about nine months to begin construction. The contract calls for complete construction time of two years.

Of course, EarthLink already has said it is no longer interested in continuing under the original contract terms, so unless the contract is renegotiated in some way, the network won't be built, at least not by EarthLink. It might not be the last fine EarthLink pays.

The city of Houston is also free to take proposals from other vendors during the nine-month period, and could award the contract to another company, observers say.

Considering that at&t offers Houston residents a $15 Digital Subscriber Line service running at 768 kilobits a second, it's hard to see how much share EarthLink might get for a service that will wholesale to retailers at $12 a month for a 1 Mbps service. The retail price then likely will have to be set at $15 or more.

"S*** Happens, Even to Cisco, at&t and Apple

Duke University's campus Wi-Fi network reported was being flooded by Apple iPhone MAC address requests, temporarily knocking out anywhere from a dozen to 30 wireless access points at a time. Turns out that isn't the case. It was a powering issue. Good news for Apple, as the iPhone isn't the culprit at all. Still, the outages are a reminder.

For those of you who continue to think communications infrastructure is easy, this is a reminder that "stuff happens," all the time, in unexpected ways, to the "dumb pipes" we all depend on. I just got a new Linksys Wi-Fi router to hook up to my Covad T1, for example, and though the install wizard was really nicely put together, the Linksys would not talk to the Cisco router.

It is supposed to be so easy there is no indication anywhere in any of the documentation about what Web site to go to, or what support number to call, in case installation failed, which it did, repeatedly. I finally realized I was going to require tech support so figured out where to get that from Linksys. The IM support system worked fast, and well. The connection is up. But not before reinstalling the software load.

I recall remarking to the Best Buy salesperson that I didn't have any questions, and wouldn't need any help, because I expected the hardware choice and install to be "drop dead simple." That clearly is the way Linksys designed the system, and I suspect it almost always works. Unfortunately, in this case we had to reinstall the software.

The Covad install took "longer than expected" because we were getting unexpected packet loss. To make a moderately long story short, it was a physical media failure on a short jumper in the network interface unit. Go figure. That's the last thing one would expect from new wiring.

The point is, even well designed consumer interface procedures, such that put together by Linksys, Cisco, Apple and Covad, will fail on occasion, for all sorts of apparently odd reasons. Nothing is always drop dead simple, even when well-designed processes nearly always have that intention and result.

Just because we use "dumb pipes" to some extent does not mean the networks are not occasionally "surly" and prone to failure. Far from it.