"If you allow 50 states to regulate and legislate in 50 different ways, you can create a very confusing and obviously inefficient service."

Mebbe so, but if the alternative is Stalinesque central planning...

-----------
Ken STL -
look up consumercell.com - $10 (plus $4 taxes/fees, of course) plus per-minute (about standard pricing) with a one-month no-termination-fee contract. I think there are others, but I've been with them (and got a no-frills phone free) for several years.

Yeah, if you want the latest iPhone or whatever you are probably out of luck (try to find an unlocked one) but otherwise OK.

Well... I can understand the MPAA (and even RIAA) view. Doesn't mean I like it, but then, I'm not that fond of paying for groceries either.

But I don't see this as anything but a disaster in the making. Anyone who uses the 'net to buy music (or video) knows about little things like driver problems. And downward compatibility. Turn off selected components? Hah! And how do we get them turned back on? I wouldn't trust Apple or MSoft with this, never mind the lawyers of the entertainment industry - who have done so well with "So you bought it, doesn't mean you can use it" crap before: most recently Yahoo music, which will soon not let you play the music you bought (but gaives you a [expensive] how-to to re-record [!!!] it before time runs out, which is how people have been doing it all along) rather than letting users download software to handle the DRM license software.

And hey, how about time-shifting? If I want to record something, that does not automatically I am going to supply it to all comers via 'net! And time-shifting was pretty settled (yes, we are allowed to do it) some time ago - search "BetaMax+Vallenti" again.

Does anyone else remember the "V Chip"
*V-Chip*
which as far as I know is still required? Do you know anyone who uses it? Know that we all pay/paid for it?

http://www.fcc.gov/vchip/

$5/month?

OK, that beats mine. $12/month ($10 plus tax and fees), phone is free (yes, FREE), one-month termination (no fee) and I can either pay $0.25 per minute (which is what I use - this thing is for emergency calls, in three years I've made two outgoing calls) or use a "plan" starting at $0.10/minute.

https://www.consumercellular.com/

'... a CD in a sealed envelope, the seal on which read, `By breaking this seal, you agree to our contract,` but the contract itself was on the CD, behind the seal."

What the... are some idiots still trying to do "shrinkwrap licenses" in this day and age? I thought the courts threw out any possibility of enforcing such idiocy decades ago!