US telcos know at best two things at this point: keep the network up and collect rent. They cannot solve complicated social problems like spam or internet secur

US telcos know at best two things at this point: keep the network up and collect rent. They cannot solve complicated social problems like spam or internet security. They just don't have the skills or the willingness to invest. We will all continue to pay them if only for internet access, and for a good price too thanks to countless mergers leaving consumers with few choices, but they are otherwise transforming into dumber and dumber pipes at a pretty fast clip. There's more profit to be made for them being a dumb pipe while device and OS manufacturers pick up the security / spam slack for free (eg, how much is anyone actually willing to pay for spam filtering) because it lets them provide a trusted environment to sell apps and ads in.