Nokia N900 is the most liberal, feature_complete smartphone as of yet. Ofcourse carriers do not like such progressive device. They'd rather have control. Nokia, to me, seems like a corporation which least screws their customers in this regard, and is therefore on less good ties with carriers than for example Apple. Example: Nokia bundles Skype in mobile phones. Apple clearly gives its users heroin, after which they don't care they're screwed by both carrier (T-Mobile in NL, AT&T in US, ...) and Apple (crazy control freaks).

The carriers don't want to be convinced because it hurts their direct interests and because others are easy to influence. The users cannot be convinced because they are too stupid due to lack of formal education (simple maths). The government cannot be convinced because they are too corrupt. Nothing will change in the short term. Unfortunately.

What you want instead is the infrastructure owned by an entity who has incentive to own it. When I was in US, I saw roads being sponsored by private business of the area. In return they had their name advertised as-is. A great principle IMO. Meanwhile, the Dutch railroad is not owned by the government but instead by a private corporation different than those who operate the trains. Positive: every entity has interest to provide quality. Negative: finger pointing.

I also see on 'broadband' Internet landscape some businesses who break network neutrality while others don't. If vulture.. err venture capitalists own the business and all they care for is short term profit they don't give a **** about the brand recognition, and because they have a monopoly or very little competition they can screw the customer. Thats what UPC (cable corp.) does here. Meanwhile you get what you pay for! I pay more for my ADSL but its managed by professionals who have more ethics than the average ADSL provider.

So in the end money talks and most customers are stupid or don't care. If unsubsidized phones are becoming more and more popular, or law limits or prevents the practice, we're going to see some fireworks. They also throw with mud. In reply to 2-year contracts becoming illegal in NL (instead 1 year + then each month able to unsubscribe) they replied this would be the end of carrier subsidized phones. The end? Hmm, strange, given they continuously sell 1-year subsidized phones as well as of now. Slowly but surely however, LTE will roll out, and this means there will be IP-only subscriptions with limits in one way or another (speed, priority/network_neutrality, traffic, ...).