[mbreese]

Are you going to argue that there is a sufficiently low barrier to enter the mobile phone market? At some point the costs to enter a market are so large that a disruptive force can't feasibly form. In that case, free market forces can't act, so it becomes impossible to have a fully free market.

[xorglorb]

The mobile phone market has been disrupted time and time again, the most recent example being the iPhone. The iPhone was a revolutionary new technology on the market, and was quickly followed by Android, which improved on many features leading to benefit for the consumer.

If you are referring to cell carriers, there is a high infrastructure cost, however even that does not prevent disruption. A standard cell tower can cost upwards of two million dollars, however the OpenBTS project has shown that software radios can significantly reduce the cost to the tens of thousands of dollars per tower. This, combined with a limited initital rollout can keep the infrastructure costs under one hundred million, not an unreasonable number for venture capital funding once the technology is proven.

[jackvalentine]

You might be able to get the tower cost down, but how do you reduce the cost of wireless spectrum which must be regulated by necessity?

[esrauch]

Even assuming that such technology exists and is viable (which I really doubt considering the major telcos would easily be using the technology if it was the miracle cure that you are suggesting) the fact that a cell phone that doesn't work in different states much less cities is hardly a cell phone at all. If you can't even use the same phone at your workplace and your home then it isn't even a cell phone, it's a cordless phone attached to a landline.