I think the implication of the article is that it would not use an existing carrier at all. Republic wireless still relies on traditional cell phone networks to handle calls/data/texts when not in range of wifi.
I'm not sure I get it -- it sound's like he wanted to create a national carrier, but bypass all of the FCC licensing requirements by utilizing unlicensed spectrum. This obviously wouldn't work --- nor should it, given the havoc which this would cause if people could just setup national networks on the WiFi spectrum.
More information is needed to really determine what was really in the pipe at the time.
I originaly thought the iphone would be an iChat client running only on data via a network. With facetime and iMessage it looks like that's the way things are heading...
One happy side-effect (for Jobs) of Apple not running a network was that AT&T got the blame when there were bandwidth issues due to heavy demand for data, not Apple. ("I love my iPhone, but that damn AT&T network.....")
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Wireless networks are essentially ISPs.