• The Wall Street Journal, Monday, October 22, 2007 10:33 AM

The complex relationships tying products and services together in the mobile wireless industry confounds most consumers. If I decide to buy an HP notebook to replace a Dell, I'm not suddenly tied to a particular Web browser or Internet service provider; so why, if I'm a T-Mobile customer, can't I buy an iPhone? Simply put, network providers control the cell phone market, forcing handset makers to strike lucrative deals for access to their customers. But nobody controls the Internet.

The free ISP-PC relationship is the way digital capitalism should work, and, in the case of the mass-market personal-computer industry, and the modern Internet, it has created one of the greatest technological revolutions and as well as wealth creation and consumer empowerment. The future of the cell phone market could be just as grand, yet its hundreds of millions of users remain "trapped" by exclusive partnerships and high-priced services.

How did this happen? Per the newspaper: the "shortsighted" and "stupid" Federal Trade Commission has "allowed itself to be bullied and fooled by a handful of big wireless phone operators for decades now," limiting consumer choice and choking innovation. The result: the U.S. is "the laughingstock of the mobile-technology world."

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal »