Here's another question; what's the long-term effect of inspiring absolutely incandescent levels of loathing among "customers" who actually feel like severely exploited captives? Could that produce anything that might disrupt a business model? Maybe? Possibly?
One could have said the same things about airlines before the emergence of Southwest and similar carriers. When dissatisfaction is so high, and you treat your customers with utter contempt, it leaves a gaping hole for someone to disrupt your business model. Eventually someone is going to figure out some sort of distributed wireless technology that routes around the FCC established monopoly the cell carriers currently have. At first it will look like a toy and they'll ignore it, but then it will get better and better until it's too late to stop the momentum.
Well I think it will happen in a way that circumvents their traditional oversight. It's not so much that the FCC will allow it, more that someone will find a way to operate largely outside the FCC. For example, cable TV successfully routed around equal time and content restrictions for broadcast networks in the US. The FCC was powerless to really control it because it was private. Also, wifi emerged as a standard because it operated in unregulated spectrum which gave companies a chance to innovate. Other than basic certification of devices, the FCC has little sway over what happens with wifi.
