And it's worth remembering that the company that changed it all was Apple. They were the first[1] to ship a "real" web browser on a phone, and they were large

And it's worth remembering that the company that changed it all was Apple. They were the first[1] to ship a "real" web browser on a phone, and they were large enough to bully carriers into submissions and force them to provide them a raw data pipe, no "special" services. When people at RIM (AKA Blackberry) saw this, they were outraged, as no carrier would ever let them get away with that. Their solution had to be far more integrated with carrier infrastructure, it was very far from Apple's "just let us do TCP/IP and we will handle the rest" approach. [1] At least for "real" consumers, there was probably a way to get one on some phone somewhere before that, but it was obscure enough that nobody really did. [2] source: Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry: 9781250096067: McNish, Jacquie, Silcoff, Sean