Battle of the Mobile SmartPhone Carriers

Summer is turning out to be such a rainy season — it has been raining smart phones galore, with the new iPhone and the Palm Pre, and Blackberry following suit with the new Tour. With all the reviews and the buffet of features especially designed to appeal to a wide variety of passions and fancies, a lot of people are hooked and are whipping their credit cards out.

Purchasing a new mobile phone, however, may also mean having to do one other thing — giving up your old mobile carrier. Most phone manufacturers have exclusive deals with mobile phone carriers that allow them to exclusively distribute certain models for a period of time — Apple and AT&T for the iPhone, Sprint and Palm for the Pre. Blackberry Tour will reportedly be carried by Verizon and Sprint.

Even the Senate is in on the action. They intend to quiz those involved about this cozy relationship that manufacturers have with carriers due to the impact that it has to the buying public in general. The move was reportedly based on a request brought forth by a group of rural operators.

Among the things that are to be discussed is the fact that the practice may actually be limiting the choice of consumers regarding the handsets that they can buy, depending on their geographical location. Some rural areas are serviced only be small operators, and the exclusivity contracts prevent consumers in these areas from purchasing new handsets. Other concerns brought up are the inability of some customers to use certain features such as multi-media messaging and tethering.

There may be things that are being overlooked; whether on purpose or unintentionally, we would like to give key players the benefit of the doubt. We can only wait and see what all this really is about and where all this talk is headed for.