Free the iPhone

I had the opportunity to play around with a friend's iPhone, and I have to say, it's pretty awesome. It's also the future of digital communication, with multiple devices merged into one box. Therefore, it is absolutely ridiculous that AT&T has an exclusive license to deliver their wireless service through it. It's like Comcast having an exclusive license for a Sony flat-panel TV. And much to my surprise, Congress has actually spoken up about this.

Bipartisan members of Congress spoke out today to free the iPhone and other next generation hand-held computers from the grip of phone incumbents like AT&T and Verizon.

During the hearing of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, representatives from both sides of the aisle called for a more open wireless system where new innovations aren't held hostage to the competition-killing carriers that control the network [...]

In what's been dubbed the "iPhone hearing" Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and "Chip" Pickering (R-Miss.) called for a different system - where wholesalers could compete and new applications and devices could be connected regardless of carrier.

"The iPhone highlights both the promise and the problems with the wireless industry today," Rep. Markey said holding up before other members his newly acquired iPhone. "On the one hand, it demonstrates the sheer brilliance and wizardry of wireless engineering. On the other hand, the advent of the iPhone raises questions about the fact that a consumer can't use this phone with other wireless carriers."

That Chip Pickering, a conservative Republican from Mississippi, jumped aboard this train is astonishing. This is the beginnings of making the telecom market much more open and free, to increase competition and to move this country onto a much better footing with regard to connectivity. We are one of the worst developed nations in broadband access and wireless connectivity in the world, and it's because we have this old guard system of delivering access that rewards big business at the expense of consumers and cripples innovation. The choice is between the telecom's wishes of putting gates up on the Internet where you only get proper access (as a consumer or as a Web content developer) if you pay more money; or the consumer's deep wish that the Internet and wireless networks are neutral, open and free.

Markey and Pickering spoke about the current dilemma in America's wireless system. The iPhone is shackled to AT&T and won't work on any other network. The reason? We have allowed carriers to exert almost complete gatekeeper control over all devices, services and content in the wireless sector.

This has left the U.S. generations behind other nations, a failure that prompted New York Times blogger David Pogue to call American carriers "calcified, conservative and way behind their European and Asian counterparts."

Here's Ben Scott from FreePress on the iPhone hearing (the rumor I heard is that the hearing came about because John Dingell got his iPhone and realized he was locked in to AT&T and he got super-pissed):



FreePress has also set up Free the iPhone, a website with action items to change this horrible, weird policy that only exists in the wireless market and not with any other consumer electronic device. You can sign the petition.

This is just one part of a fight over net neutrality and who controls communications in America in the 21st century. It's incredibly important.