Klobuchar, others, wonder if AT&T should rule iPhone market

On Monday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar joined three other Commerce Committtee members in urging the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider exclusivity agreements among cellphone manufacturers and phone companies. “Translation” — writes Boing Boing Gadgets — “Should AT&T be the only carrier that gets to sell the iPhone?“

The letter to acting FCC chair Michael Copps — signed by Klobuchar and Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) — doesn’t name iPhone, but the language makes it clear that the phone’s exclusive contract with AT&T is a concern: It asks Copps and the FCC to “examine this issue carefully and act expeditiously should you find that exclusivity agreements unfairly restrict consumer choice or adversely impact competition in the commercial wireless marketplace.”

At the committee’s hearing yesterday, Paul Roth, an AT&T president, defended the exclusive deals like the one they have with Apple.

Exclusive handset distribution arrangements encourage the necessary collaboration that optimizes handset performance and accelerates the delivery of next-generation features. They increase a carrier’s incentives to make purchase commitments and to invest in promotions, network improvements and special training of sales staff. They lower manufacturer entry barriers and serve as a key tool to maintain brand value. And, as an important form of competition, they encourage other carriers and manufacturers to do better, by improving their own handset portfolios or the prices, features and other characteristics of their existing offerings.

BoingBoing’s Joel Johnson says it’s an issue of consumer choice: Cellphone customers should have the option of using the phone they choose with the provider they prefer — say running an iPhone on T-Mobile or Sprint. But he wonders about the technical aspects.

“It’s certainly fair to consumers to have the most choice, especially when carriers have created a false economy to force customers into long-term contracts through the sale of ‘subsidized’ phones,” he writes. “But it might be sticky for the manufacturers of the phones — would Apple, for instance, be forced to make different models of iPhone that worked with other wireless standards like Verizon’s CDMA?”