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It's interesting, but I have not had too many issues with ATT coverage recently. It's almost like they fixed things. Maybe it's just my area (Bay Area - Peninsula), but I wonder if everyone else is still regularly experiencing the claimed problems with AT&T.
Fails the three primary market advantages that Apple always goes for: - Lots of opportunities to innovate (regulation and spectrum issues with the FCC, patents on the major wireless technologies involved, all the infrastructure equipment is produced/procured from 3rd parties) - Large profit margin (carriers aren't generally 40-60% margin operations like the rest of Apple) - Low ongoing overhead (lots of maintenance o…
You could make roughly the same points about the iTunes / record label relationship. If it were enough of a strategic advantage it might happen. I wouldn't cross your fingers though.
The proof that is was such a unique experience? The labels spent the next 2 years fighting tooth and nail for 'control' of their music catalogs back from iTunes.
I'm bringing this up not to say that this is insider's information or that it is thus more likely to happen, but just because in this case, the author is more significant than some rambling from a random blogger. That theme is not new, so it's interesting that he would bring it up.
So no, as bad as the current duopoly is, I don’t think Apple becoming a carrier will make it any better.
Given the news last week that Apple's market cap was larger than the federal government's cash on hand, i thought this was going to be a request for an aircraft carrier.
Apple would be spending half its cash pile to acquire a domestic company. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of the company's sales are international [1]; furthermore, I would guess that much of the company's growth is in international markets, especially in Asia. Unless Apple is seeking to improve its operational expertise in running carriers in order to buy up carriers throughout the world, this acquisition would be a very cu…
There are plenty of reasons Apple won't buy a carrier (I think namely because it wouldn't be approved without concessions that Steve Jobs would never live with), but money isn't one of them. Interest rates are very near zero and Apple isn't exactly a credit risk. Not to mention Apple's stock value...
Considering Apple's capital structure, interest rates aren't really a key consideration here. "Apple's stock value" reflects the fact that they invest in relatively high return projects and that investors expect them to continue to do so. This type of acquisition would not be satisfactory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weighted_average_cost_of_capita...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could make roughly the same points about the iTunes / record label relationship. If it were enough of a strategic advantage it might happen. I wouldn't cross your fingers though.
I'm sorry, but only two of those points are true. When iTunes came out, there was nothing like it in the market. A great way to manage and buy new music all at one place? Plenty of room for invention. The proof that is was such a unique experience? The labels spent the next 2 years fighting tooth and nail for 'control' of their music catalogs back from iTunes.
Unless they have a magic way to make 3G/4g work for everybody and everywhere, they will just pick up all the consumer rage that at the moment AT&T and the likes are shielding away from them.
Fails the three primary market advantages that Apple always goes for: - Lots of opportunities to innovate (regulation and spectrum issues with the FCC, patents on the major wireless technologies involved, all the infrastructure equipment is produced/procured from 3rd parties) - Large profit margin (carriers aren't generally 40-60% margin operations like the rest of Apple) - Low ongoing overhead (lots of maintenance o…
On an aside note, there's a group of students here in the Netherlands that want to do that: setup a MVNO as a coop or a non-profit, that will essentially give you SIP/data of your calls, instead of handling routing from A-Z. See http://limesco.org/wordpress/, though most of it is in Dutch.
And getting back to Apple: an iPhone MVNO could work well. On the other hand, Apple has rules about selling iPhones on networks that make Apple like a carrier already: iPhone data has to be 2x as fast as any other comparable plan, etc. Apple has the carriers in their grip...