What people don't understand is that telecommunications is all about scale and interoperability. That's how the original phone system managed to grow throughout the world. Cry about it all you want, but there's a reason that universal service typically demands universal technology and compatibility.
Despite the fact that our networks are well-built out, it hasn't been long enough that the dust has settled yet. We still have an opportunity to push interoperability, better spectrum management, and better technology management. A lot of us tend to forget that these companies don't own the spectrum (even though they make it sound like they do). We do.
I consider many telecom companies out there to be very hypocritical. Even at the CCA, where the smaller carriers bemoan the lack of interoperability and stuff like that, they talk out of both sides of their mouths. They want the big carriers to not have that ability, but they want it to screw over their customers. They've even said that they don't want to offer that to their customers.
A.J. often accuses me of having a Eurasian view to telecom. And perhaps he's right. But the Eurasian view is that common technology, common frequencies, and common networks are incalculably beneficial to the public. CEPT has done a great job of that in Europe, and even though the spread of that beyond Europe is tinged by some darker undertones in Africa and Asia, I think it still worked out fairly well.
Contrary to popular belief, I liked using CDMA2000 when it first arrived. It was superior to FD-TDMA systems like D-AMPS and GSM. But, I switched to UMTS as soon as it arrived, because I felt that it sufficiently incorporated the advantages of CDMA technology with some advancement and interesting capabilities of its own. And of course, it was a global technology being adopted by all regions. I've never made it a secret that I prefer UMTS over CDMA2000. I personally like that operators in Canada, Latin America, and most of Asia have switched from CDMA2000 to UMTS as they've realized the socioeconomical weakness of the CDMA2000 platform. For a company like Sprint, who is deploying multi-mode gear, it's very easy to add UMTS to it and transition over time to UMTS/LTE. T-Mobile is doing the same thing in MetroPCS CDMA/LTE markets, and it's been going along very swimmingly. I think that operators in the US should move to a common UMTS/LTE platform, especially since our spectrum for LTE is so screwed up that we've practically broke the key benefit of everyone using LTE.
I've also never made it a secret that I think the FCC needs a swift kick in the pants by the public to force them to fix our spectrum problem. We don't have a spectrum shortage problem. We have a spectrum mismanagement problem. This is because Congress keeps forcing the FCC to auction spectrum when it isn't ready, and the FCC keeps taking shortcuts to auction spectrum, leaving it fragmented and useless. Thankfully, the FCC doesn't make totally insane decisions (like making 600MHz spectrum TDD). However, the FCC's work with 700MHz, S band, PCS H, L band, etc. prove to me that we, as the public, need to force the FCC to fix this -- once the government is back online.