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When you control the pipes, you control the ecosystem. At the very least, you can impose your will on a good portion of the environment. This is what the mobile industry has come down to in the United States. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint have as much or more say about the devices that eventually reach consumers hands than the platform providers or manufacturers.

Why do Android device updates take so long? Ask the carriers. Why are there half a dozen different skins for Android smartphones? Ask the carriers. Why do high-end smartphones cost what they do? Ask the carriers. Why did Nokia have to wait to enter the U.S. market with its new Lumia line? Ask the carriers. Why are there a ton of different versions of the Samsung Galaxy? Ask ... you get the picture.

Since last August's move by the U.S. Justice Dept. to block AT&T's proposed acquisition of competing wireless carrier T-Mobile from parent Deutsche Telekom (DT), there has been renewed debate in Congress and in the public discourse over the role of government in regulating the affairs of private enterprise. Last month, policy analysts -- evidently just learning to use these search engine things you read so much about -- appeared to strike a gold mine: a report from the Economic Policy Institute (PDF available here) that appeared to not only confirm but bolster AT&T's claim that the merger would lead to net jobs creation.

Usually when something is repeated enough times over the Web, it becomes the truth -- or at least gets added to Wikipedia, which for many is the same thing. But in the wake of criticism of what appeared to be the authors' jobs creation claims, the EPI responded that it never made such claims to begin with. That led the Federal Communications Commission last Thursday to begin probing how those claims were invented, by whom, and why.

In March the CEOs of Sprint, Verizon and AT&T took the stage at CTIA in Orlando for a lively discussion about the state of the mobile ecosystem and its future. The keynote was affable with an undertone of drama, coming two days after AT&T announced that it was acquiring T-Mobile for $39 billion.

The CEOs returned to the stage today at the CTIA Enterprise & Apps conference in San Diego. A lot has changed from March. Sprint has sued AT&T to prevent the T-Mobile merger and is fighting for its livelihood as a major U.S. carrier. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse took a couple swipes at AT&T head man Ralph de la Vega but overall the carriers spoke about working together and how they are pushing the bounds of mobile innovation in the United States. Check out our Storify of the keynote below.

The then-newly installed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, said in October 2009, "We are fast entering a world where mass-market mobile devices consume thousands of megabytes each month. So we must ask: What happens when every mobile user has an iPhone, a Palm Pre, a BlackBerry Tour or whatever the next device is? What happens when we quadruple the number of subscribers with mobile broadband on their laptops or netbooks? The short answer: We will need a lot more spectrum."

Yesterday, a systematic and mathematical analysis of U.S. spectrum allocation blatantly called Genachowski's statement to the 2009 CTIA Wireless conference flat wrong.

A Sprint executive said this morning that the company plans on keeping unlimited data plans as an option for consumers. Sprint sees unlimited data as a differentiator from AT&T and Verizon and is inline with the moral high ground that it has been trying to take in regards to the prospective AT&T takeover of T-Mobile. As good as unlimited data sounds in an advertisement, does it really matter?

At this point, "unlimited data" is a clever marketing ploy. Carriers are constantly learning how to upgrade their networks to handle data convergence better and then offload data use to local broadband networks. At the same time, the average consumer does not use as much data as they think. So, Sprint, it is great to keep your data options open (no throttling, no cap), but how much of this really means anything anymore?

Here's a take on a cloud-based service you might not have considered (something new to attach an "-aaS" to): Suppose you're the producer or manufacturer of a class of device that should have Internet connectivity. One hypothetical possibility: an interactive touch panel for the back seats of taxicabs. Perhaps you've acquired some ARM licenses and you're ready to stamp out the device and put a case on it. But you're not in a position to house the data center or make a deal with broadband carriers to supply the connectivity, or maybe even to write all the back-end software that connectivity would require.

Premiering last February in Europe, a new company called Macheen is assembling a global cloud service that caters to an entirely new market: outsourced back-end support with connectivity built-in. Yesterday, the company went live with broadband service to the U.S. via Sprint, with the goal of endowing classes of portable devices of all sizes with built-in, cloud-based online support and services channels.

Add Sprint to the telcos looking to get into the cloud services market. According to Roger Cheng, Sprint will be offering "hosted collaboration services" to small and medium-sized businesses using its data center to provide capacity.

American Express' new digital payments and commerce platform Serve has just announced its first carrier deal since its launch in March of this year. The company's new partnership with U.S. operator Sprint will allow Serve's mobile wallet application to be made available in the Sprint Zone for customers using select Android phones.

Developers will soon have another way to charge Android users for apps, it appears. U.S. mobile operator Sprint is now joining T-Mobile and AT&T to support carrier billing in the Android Market. Carrier billing means that users can pay for apps on their next mobile phone bill, instead of using a credit card or some other third-party mobile payments service.

According to reports, the rollout of this feature started on April 7 and will continue until April 14.

U.S. operator Sprint is planning to launch its own NFC-enabled mobile payments service ahead of Isis, the joint venture from the three other major U.S. operators, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless. While Isis plans to launch commercial services in 2012, in conjunction with Discover and Baclays U.S., part of U.K. bank Barclays PLC, Sprint says it will launch this year.

The operator is also touting its more open business model as a key differentiator between the two carrier-led mobile wallet solutions. "We intend to make this an open solution where consumers can use their phone in a variety of physical locations," Kevin McGinnis, VP of Product Platforms at Sprint told Bloomberg this week. "Because we're allowing other brands and other institutions to participate, they can also tell their consumers that this is available on Sprint."