Just few weeks ago at INSEAD dinner at 3GSM in Barcelona I brought up the idea of Apple or Nokia becoming the carriers 2.0....
Think about it - why would you care about which operator to subscribe to if your handset can hook up to any network or wifi spot?... Would you buy content from carrier or from Apple (or Amazon or Yahoo or Nokia)? Would you care about your call rates if you use Skype or have flat rate voice plans across all carriers??
Apple and Nokia understand consumers much better than any of the carriers, so I wont be surprised if they start offering global data/voice service subscriptions (wifi/wimax/3G) in some 3-5 years.... Can you believe that they are not dreaming of killing their good old friends carriers? Read here
Apple's Old MVNO Plan
By James Quintana Pearce - Thu 10 Apr 2008 03:10 PM PST
This isn't really relevant anymore, but patent filings show that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) was at least considering an MVNO in the lead-up to the launch of the iPhone. AppleInsider writes that Apple was considering a model "that would allow all primary wireless carriers within a specific region to serve iPhone users by bidding prices for their service in a dynamic, real-time model", with the carrier selection also being able to be made based on the quality of the network and so on. The obvious attraction is that people would get the cheapest calls at a particular time and place. It was a bold plan, except that to be truly effective the handset would need to connet to both GSM and CDMA networks and—eventually—all the 3G upgrades. More significantly, it would have required Apple to convince all the operators to change their business models instead of just one, and without the drawcard of "exclusivity". (via MocoNews).
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