You actually can't buy a non-industrial device from anyone but Verizon with their branding and firmware that they will allow on their network. They fought FCC r

You actually can't buy a non-industrial device from anyone but Verizon with their branding and firmware that they will allow on their network. They fought FCC regulations that forced them to open up and lost (http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/11/verizon_open.html http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/11/verizon_open.h...), but instead just made their device approval process more public — they never actually got rid of it: http://opennetwork.verizonwireless.com/ http://opennetwork.verizonwireless.com/