#disruption.

[codehunger]

Riding the Wave of Innovation: Popular Startups in the USA

The United States has long been a hotbed for innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, giving rise to a multitude of startups that have disrupted industries and captured the attention of the global market. In this blog post, we’ll explore some of the most popular startups currently making waves in the USA. 1. SpaceX: Reaching for the Stars SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk in 2002, has become a symbol…

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[infiniteloopguy]

MacWorld reports that Steve Jobs, before launching the iPhone, really considered launching his own wireless network for connecting customers to the internet.  MacWorld reports:

Steve Jobs initially hoped to create his own network with the unlicensed spectrum that Wi-Fi uses rather than work with the mobile operators, said wireless industry legend John Stanton.

Stanton, currently chairman at venture capital firm Trilogy Partnership, said he spent a fair amount of time with Jobs between 2005 and 2007. "He wanted to replace carriers," Stanton said of Jobs, the Apple founder and CEO who passed away recently after a battle with cancer. "He and I spent a lot of time talking about whether synthetically you could create a carrier using Wi-Fi spectrum. That was part of his vision."

I can tell you that the services that we use to connect to the internet -- cable high speed internet, cell phone wireless, etc -- are ripe for disruption.  Steve Jobs clearly understood that the next area of disruption is the way we connect to the internet.  

I am thoroughly disgusted by the current state of service for access to the internet.  At home I have TimeWarner cable and I am paying over $40 per month for internet access that is limited to the home and while it has a fast download speed, the upload speed is less than 1 mbs.  On top of that, on my iPhone, I am paying $30 per month for data access on AT&T Wireless for my iPhone and on top of that $55 per per month for phone calls, which are nothing more than digital calling.  As many people know, the AT&T Wireless service stinks. So while I am supposed to get fast data speeds, I am not getting them because of poor capacity.

We have seen amazing progress in mobile devices as well as computers.  The real bottleneck is access to the internet, both mobile and at home.  The companies providing internet access, the cable companies and Ma Bell spinoffs like Verizon and AT&T, are old, crappy companies that are inefficient and mismanaged.   Apple solving the "TV problem" isn't really going to fully happen until Apple or someone else disrupts the businesses of connecting to the internet.  

A true disrupter to the internet connection business will displace the landline internent providers and the mobile internet providers.  Among other thing, a true disrupter will provide us better quality at a lower price.

Here is what I envision and hope for:

An ISP that provides us superfast internet connection for 1 price for all of our devices.  So rather than paying a fee for my iPhone and another fee for access to the internet at home, I pay one monthly fee and have fast, reliable internet connection everywhere, on all my devices.  And once I pay that, the other crazy fees, like paying extra for telephone access and extra for tv services, will disappear. Recently, I temporarily did not have use of my iPhone.  But I had my iPad 2, which had 3G access.  I realized that for just $25 per month, the iPad 2 served both as an internet computer and a phone.  With voip apps on the iPad, it essentially can act as an iPhone.  There is no point to paying $85 per month to AT&T wireless for both phone and data monthly service.  

Similarly, once a device like the iPad has even faster internet service for a monthly fee of $25 per month, there will be no need for the $175 per month that I pay for cable tv and cable internet at home.  The iPad with fast internet connection via wireless will sub for what I get out of the TV.  Right now, I have many apps on my iPad that provide video content, including from traditional tv providers.  The iPad streams that content to my large TV via Apple TV.  I am very close to dumping my cable tv and just using cable internet at home.  But I can see that in the very near future, I will get faster wireless data speeds that will obviate the need for a landline internet connection.

So, of course Steve Jobs saw that as the future and of course he explored doing that pre-2007.