It's not that the US is the only place that creates standards for their phones. Case in point, TD-SCDMA in China. I could probably conjure up a few others.

And the US government is not the only place prone to lobbying. I fear that you paint the US in a way that makes it so unique without acknowledging that what you state happens in basically every other country in one way or another.

How do you care to actually pay for all of those changes? It's already one of the more expensive places to own a phone.

I will say one thing... the so-called death grip is really important if you're a Nokia fan in the US. Otherwise, people really don't migrate as much - even when it was a more even playing field when everybody was CDMA or TDMA. I unlocked a Cincinnati Bell Nokia 7160 to work on Suncom's network without incident. Didn't net me one damn discount.

Same applies now. Anyway, until the FCC forces all of the carriers to play fair, bow down and play nice with the same GSM frequencies like all of the other countries of the world; we'll continue to have this fractured, out-dated system that is easier to discuss how it should be fix than it truly is to fix it.

Simply stated; talk is real cheap. The fix will not be cheap.