Five years ago, the iPhone revolutionized the mobile business and kicked off a seismic shift in the technology industry that continues today. But the massive success of Apple’s phone has overshadowed the grim reality of an American wireless marketplace that has become increasingly hostile to innovation — a market tightly controlled by carriers who capriciously pick winners and losers while raising prices and insisting that their use of valuable public spectrum remain free of any oversight. While the iPhone is a raging success, the wireless market is headed towards total failure.

Nilay Patel at The Verge. As they say, read the whole thing.

Updated November 25, 2011:

The AT&T/Verizon Wireless Duopoly

Law professor Susan Crawford on the mobile carrier duopoly that will remain even if the AT&T/T-Mobile acquisition is blocked.

More on the Proposed Merger:
Law professor Mark Lemley on the importance of fringe competition: If AT&T Marries T-Mobile, All of Us Will Lose.”

Status update: AT&T and T-Mobile merger: Not dead yet (CNN: November 25, 2011)