You might be able to replace your dreaded carrier with Apple by 2020 as the company is reportedly in talks to launch its own virtual network service in the United States and Europe, Business Insider reports. A mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, leases mobile network capacity rather than own spectrum or run expensive wireless network infrastructure.
According to Business Insider's sources in the know, carriers would auction capacity to Apple so it could run the service itself. The Cupertino firm "is privately trialling" an MVNO service in the United States, the story goes, and is negotiating with wireless carriers in Europe about bringing the service to that continent. If Apple decides to offer a MVNO service, it will take "at least five years" to fully launch, as per telecoms sources who spoke to the publication. It's apparently "open secret" among carriers that a virtual Apple network is on the way.
If Apple becomes a MVNO provider, you'll be paying them monthly charges for cellular data, phone calls and texts. Curiously enough, Apple in 2012 patented a technology that would automatically switch between multiple wireless carriers, yet another indication that the firm sees itself becoming a MVNO operator. This is also where the Apple SIM could show its full potential. An Apple-run wireless service could benefit tremendously from 850+ million credit cards iTunes has on file, 456 Apple retail stores around the world (190 of which are outside the U.S.), world-class support as well as from the strong gravitational pull of the Apple brand.
Ever since Steve Jobs took the MacWorld stage in January 2007 to deliver his career-defining iPhone presentation, the technology world has been speculating that the only reasons Apple chose AT&T as the exclusive U.S. carrier for the original iPhone stemmed from the technical hurdles preventing it from becoming a MVNO at the time.
