Virginia Postrel under the heading Who Cares What Consumers Want? We're the Phone Company links to an article in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) that discusses the negative impact on innovation of US wireless carriers controlling the devices that can be used on their networks.
One of the important differences between the US and the GSM standard used in most of the rest of the world is that the service identity for GSM phones is not embedded in the handset as it is with the CDMA handsets sold in the US, but in a chip (the "SIM" or "Subscriber Identity Module") which can be moved between handsets.
Not only can I roam on my home GSM service in most parts of the world (outside North America and Japan) due the ubiquity of the GSM standard, but it also means I can go to the local carrier and buy a SIM to insert in my handset, and presto, I have a local number and local calling rates.
Shame on you US wireless carriers.
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