Rather than be tied down to any one carrier, why not keep changing carriers in real time based on whomever’s going to give you the best deal?
A new patent filed by Mountain View’s finest proposes exactly that, bringing together heterogeneous technologies — "community-wide" networks like WiFi and WiMAX along with GSM, CDMA, and so on — and an "auction system" that would let the user select (or allow the phone to automatically select) the best deal at the moment depending on their needs (available features or minimum speeds, time limits, and so on).
I doubt it will ever be released but the idea is brilliant.
