I just moved to England for the year, and so I decided it was time to get a new cell phone. Back in the States I had a RAZR phone on the T-mobile network. I didn't like the phone that much - the buttons were hard to use and the interface was confusing, but being a student I didn't want to shell out $200-$400 for something cooler, so I decided to get a European SIM card. But here's the problem - when I went to the Phones4U store, they told me they couldn't give me a card. My phone had been 'locked' to the US T-Mobile network, and nothing short of some serious hacking was going to free it.

The US is in this respect very different from pretty much any other in the country in the world. If I were to buy a phone in the UK today (and I just did), I would buy the phone, then choose from a variety of carriers - T-Mobile, Virgin, Orange, Vodafone, etc - each with monthly or pay-as-you go plans. Should I choose a different provider or take a trip to another country (and I will in a few weeks) I can just buy a new SIM card guaranteed to work on my phone. The result is greater mobility for consumers and greater competition between carriers.

This type of cell phone mobility is just not available in the United States, for a number of reasons. Some companies have locked their phones to individual SIM cards, making it impossible to switch to other carriers. Other companies make the process of switching so technically difficult only the most committed customers will be able to unlock their phones. And some companies (e.g. AT&T with the iPhone) make exclusive deals with companies to make phones only over their network.

But the influence of carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile extends well beyond our ability to switch between carriers. Their dominance over the hardware market insures that cool new features like call timers, free picture emails, and VoIP-enabled WiFi that might hurt their business plans never make it to market. The result is that phones in America work less well and with fewer features than their counterparts over the pond.

These may seem like small complaints, but they really aren't. My inability to switch carriers means a less competitive market between carriers. Your application-crippled phones mean there is less demand for innovators and inventors in the wireless world. If Americans want a competitive and innovative wireless market, we need to stop thinking about locked and crippled phones as just a nuisance but a matter of public policy.