Price fixing investigations of SMS texting: also ask about instant messaging

In reign of the Dark Lord antitrust enforcement languished. The Marketarian religion did not admit to imperfections requiring government attention.

In the recovery new light is being cast where dark things have grown ...

Digital Domain - What Carriers Aren’t Eager to Tell You About Texting

... Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin and the chairman of the Senate antitrust subcommittee, wanted to look behind the curtain. He was curious about the doubling of prices for text messages charged by the major American carriers from 2005 to 2008, during a time when the industry consolidated from six major companies to four...

A lot of things changed when the Democrats took the senate. (Thank you, thank you, Senator Tim Johnson). This was one of them.

I hope Senator Kohl will look beyond the price fixing of SMS messages into the more interesting questions of conspiracy to block instant messaging alternatives.

In particular, I think it will be interesting to ask Apple's management to discuss what happened to the Push notification that was supposed to come to the iPhone in August of 2008. That service would have enabled effective iPhone instant messaging, which would have devastated the iPhone SMS revenue that goes to both AT&T and Apple. Once slated for the OS 2.2 Push notification vanished without explanation.

Anyone have an in to Senator Kohl? I would really love to hear the answers to those questions ...