Ok I am admittedly one of the many libertarians that use NewsYC. I think ardit33 is being a little bit unfair. Not all libertarians necessarily want 8 year old

Ok I am admittedly one of the many libertarians that use NewsYC. I think ardit33 is being a little bit unfair. Not all libertarians necessarily want 8 year old crack dealers and the right to individually own nuclear weapons. There is something in between. There was a similar problem back in the early-mid 1990s with internet and broadband. The market of the time often charged per minute or per data transfered. Especially when stepping up to ISDN or a T1. Everyone said this was crazy and a total rip off. And that without government intervention the phone companies would just continue to rip everyone off forever. Then cable came along and provided some serious competition and now everything is changed. (Though if uptime is THAT important customers can still pay per bandwidth on a T1...) Internet worked itself out with the same high entry costs and regulation. Wireless will also work itself out. Government intervention may speed up the process, in this case, but that is (as others have pointed out) only because there is such regulation and high entry costs. I'm all for the senate putting some pressure on the industry. They should bring the issue to the public. But I don't know if this necessarily requires additional regulation. As for the phone companies screwing the customers - they will get what's coming. Just wait for there to be another option. Everyone will flood to this alternative and the phone companies will immediately adjust their business model and pricing to compete. And I imagine most people will be so bitter they'll abandon the telcos over issues such as this.