Things are about to get a lot more interesting in the mobile phone business, and I don’t think the carriers are going to like how this one turns out. I was just reading an article in BusinessWeek by Olga Kharif, who said that in a hearing yesterday, the Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski called for comments from smartphone developers. The question is this: Are mobile phone carriers inhibiting smartphone application development?

That may seem frivolous to you. Why should the FCC get involved with smartphone applications? For years people have been complaining about wanting this or that cool phone that’s only available at another carrier. The ability to switch carriers and port your number over was one concession, but it’s very difficult for anyone to prove that just because the, oh, I don’t know, let’s say iPhone for example, is only available through AT&T, that the exclusive contract is anticompetitive.