why we should thank Steve Jobs

First, let me clarify who the "we" here means -- its the multi-trillion dollar telecom networks business fraternity. An industry that is already running reeling under pressure from diminishing ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) rates and further deteriorated by the largely looming global slowdown. Many of the NEM (Network Equipment Manufacturers) biggies have been posting losses from past few years.
The NEMs were spending their fortunes to push the limits of high speed data transmissions (UMTS HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) field trails showed speeds of 2 MBPS), while the LTE & WIMAX are poised to have speeds many times this.
But alas, not many end-users needed this much bandwidth. So it made no business sense for the SPs (Service Providers) to buy these new high-speed networks.
Infact, there were a few speculations that the SPs had already peacked their revenues in developed nations and from now on the strategy was more of sustaining those revenues. The game had changed from attacking mode to defending mode.
For the NEMs this simply meant: less revenues -> lesser R&D investments -> even lesser or no money for R&D staff like me..
Then came the ray of the hope, the "iPhone". Can you believe just in few months of its release, it has sold more than 4 million pieces? 2 million with AT&T itself?
According to AT&T figures, on a certain day, iPhone accounted for 80% of AT&T's Internet traffic, with the all the remaining mobiles accounting for the remaining 20%.
So the message for the telecom industry is quite clear: continue development of higher speed wireless technologies, but at the same time come out with super-cool & easy-to-use gadgets to harness the power of these technologies. This would ensure that the revenue graphs would look upwards once again..
This lesson had to be taught by someone of a stature of no less than Steve Jobs himself.