Wu, Passmore and others cite restrictions involving applications like Bluetooth, which facilitates communications among such devices as printers, personal computers and wireless headsets. In an article last year for Business Communications Review, Passmore wrote that Verizon disables "all Bluetooth profiles except wireless headsets and dial-up networking. You can forget about using Bluetooth for synchronizing your phone's calendar or address-phone book-contact information with your PC's. Nor can you move any music or other files between your phone and PC, or move photos off of your phone (unless you're willing to pay Verizon 25 cents apiece for the privilege of using their network for photo transfers)."

Wu, in his 40-page article "Wireless Net Neutrality," notes that AT&T and T-Mobile "lock" their cellphones so users cannot continue using them if they switch carriers. The companies allow customers, upon request, to unlock the phones after a certain time. But Wu says "most consumers have no idea what a phone lock is" in the first place, and therefore don't know that they can reuse their phones.

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Some hold up Apple's iPhone as another example of the industry's restrictive practices, because it will operate only on AT&T's mobile service when it goes on sale this summer.

Critics of such restrictions say the FCC should consider applying the so-called "Carterphone" rules to the wireless industry. The 1968 ruling allowed inventor Thomas Carter to attach a device to AT&T phones that would convert two-way radio signals from offshore oil rigs to phone calls. AT&T, then the all-powerful Ma Bell, strenuously objected, saying any non-AT&T device could seriously damage the entire network.

The FCC disagreed, and the Carterphone decision became "a kind of Bill of Rights or Magna Carta for telecom users," Passmore recently wrote.

Wireless carriers, however, say today's competitive environment does not resemble Ma Bell's monopolistic power in the 1950s and '60s, and no new Magna Carta is needed.

"This whole issue is a giant red herring," said AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel. "This is a fiercely competitive industry," which has grown "almost entirely through the force of competition in the marketplace, more innovative devices and services, and continually lower prices."

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