For what it's worth, I think you are both right. It is an oligopoly and it is heavily colluding with governments. When I was in the wireless industry I saw mu

For what it's worth, I think you are both right. It is an oligopoly and it is heavily colluding with governments. When I was in the wireless industry I saw multiple facets of this. We could do literally anything as we were beset-of-friends with many of the three letter agencies. We had unlimited lobbyists and could kick any law down the road. One prime example would be the hands-free law that was going into effect in the late 90's. We kicked that can far down the road because the phone tech just wasn't ready for it. We were also able to silence what today are called security researchers. I was also required to give agencies unfettered and un-logged access into the mainframes PBX telco switches that routed calls and controlled the cell sites. We also had very little competition due to written and unwritten agreements that allowed us to focus on specific regions.