US DOJ Investigating Wireless Carriers

Either fix it, or admit you're in the lobbyists' back pockets and don't. End exclusivity, end carrier locking, and make the carriers compete on the services they actually provide.

(Broad, sweeping generalisation alert!)

One thing that never ceases to amaze me about the US: you folks seem so suspicious of the governments you actually have a say in, but are perfectly willing to let money-hungry corporations (which you have no control over) run roughshod in the name of an imaginary "free market".

Any human institution is by nature corrupt - governments, corporations, religions, you name it. The difference is whether or not you have a mechanism to effect change when that corruption becomes rampant. In the case of goverments, you've got the vote, and a local representative who is (ostensibly) obligated to listen to your views. Corporations? All you've got is your wallet, which makes no difference at all when millions of others are eagerly opening theirs up. Which is why antitrust laws exist in the first place.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is: how on Earth could a public investigation into the companies on which a country depends for one of its most fundamental needs - communication - be seen as a bad thing?

I'll add also that, despite all the rhetoric, both parties like big government, Republicans and Democrats alike. George Bush II and Ronald Reagan both presided over eras of rapid growth in government spending. It's just *which* big government that the parties divide on. The Democrats tend to go for things like laws regulating business and enforcing civil rights, and spend on social welfare programs. The Republicans like laws that add government control over social behaviors like marriage and abortions, and spend madly on the military. And everyone likes health care and social security benefits.

(I'm a leftist from a military family so I like spending on everything. Raise my taxes please!)

The other possible infringement is at least two companies with significant market share/power would form a horizontal "trust" (i.e. collude with their competitors) to thwart other (smaller) competition. The government would almost certainly find no evidence of that - any decently sized company has policies in place (mandatory training as well as internal controls) to prevent that. It would also be patently stupid of any of the major carriers (ATT and Verizon) to do it given how much money they are already making without resorting to this tactic (the risk/reward is way too high). There is limited competition basically guaranteed by the wireless spectrum auctions that the government itself set up. The carrier that licenses the spectrum has guaranteed income from their own operations or from reselling the spectrum to others (i.e. roaming charges). Each company just needs to ensure that they don't overbid for spectrum, stay current with competitors as far as how they use the spectrum (e.g. upgrade their networks to increase download speeds) and have efficient operations.

If the government really wanted to foster competition, they would have prevented the various mergers of the last 10 years and also have gone with a more aggressive open spectrum licensing scheme like what was proposed by Google. That would have meant more competitors but also might have hindered future investment if none of the companies had sufficient revenues/margins to upgrade their networks.

This case is somewhat laughable given that mobile phone service has much more competition (4 nationwide carriers) than local broadband service where you are lucky to have even 2 (DSL and Cable competing against one another).