On February 8th, Tim Wu wrote a blog entry about his beta draft of Wireless Net Neutrality. For a long time I’ve thought that the wireless industry in the United States was not operating in the best interest of consumers, that there actions are anti-competitive. I’ve been concerned about why Europe and the Far East is so far ahead of us in wireless innovation.

Yet most of the time, it hasn’t particularly affected me. Sure, the ridiculous pricing on text messaging discourages me from using text messaging as much as I would otherwise.

Then, this evening, I got an email that changed things. I often use Free Conference.com for conference calls. They sent out an email saying,

As of Friday, March 9, it's come to our attention that Cingular Wireless has begun blocking all conference calls made from Cingular handsets to selected conference numbers. If you call our service, you receive a recording that says, "This call is not allowed from this number. Please dial 611 for customer service".

Earlier this week, Sprint and Qwest joined in this action, blocking cellular and land line calls to these same numbers. This appears to be a coordinated effort to force you to use the paid services they provide, eliminating competition and blocking your right to use the conferencing services that work best for you.