Sure, but it also means that people routinely shell out 5x more for a fancy new phone than we do.
And it's not just competing frequency bands, it's competing technologies. AT&T has WCDMA, but Sprint and Verizon do CDMA2000. T-Mobile has HSDPA. These things don't work together. Compare that to Europe and Asia where WCDMA will get you quite far. It's entirely the FCC's fault for letting the "market decide" what 3G standard we should use instead of just mandating one like every other country. But I digress.
Believe me, many of us in the US do understand that. But its not like the major US carriers will offer us a discounted service if we bring our own unlocked phones. So if you pay for your own phone and then buy a standard US service plan, you still end up subsidizing everyone else's handsets...
This is why it's notable when Wal-Mart gets into the no-contract service plan game.
And it's not just competing frequency bands, it's competing technologies. AT&T has WCDMA, but Sprint and Verizon do CDMA2000. T-Mobile has HSDPA. These things don't work together. Compare that to Europe and Asia where WCDMA will get you quite far. It's entirely the FCC's fault for letting the "market decide" what 3G standard we should use instead of just mandating one like every other country. But I digress.