This is what you get when you have an oligopoly that isn't properly regulated and is exactly what the major Telecoms do to various devices ALL the time:

We’ve just received word from one of our friends inside AT&T that the US carrier has been successful in their attempts to lockdown the GPS functionality in their upcoming BlackBerry 8820 so that the only functioning 3rd party software will be TeleNav.

First, this is a major piss off to AT&T customers looking to get their hands on the BlackBerry 8820 mid-September, but what’s more important is why AT&T chose to do this. Apparently - and remember, this is coming from someone inside AT&T - the carrier didn’t want to launch a device that would seem superior (or be competitive) to the iPhone. Sounds a little crazy, until you realize that a GPS/Wi-Fi’d device with push email and no funny-texting touch screen that’s subsidized in price sounds a bit more appealing than a $500 device that enterprise customers can’t use.

We’ve been told that RIM was apparently livid over the decision (and with good reason), but AT&T basically said “do it or we won’t buy the 8820 or any future devices from you” and RIM backed down. Our AT&T informant also said that this was a call made by top RIM/AT&T brass, which sheds new light on Jim Balsillie’s statement that the carriers are one of RIM’s three masters.

The carriers need to be broken up, and the market needs to be regulated to refuse to allow any functionality to be locked down except in extreme circumstances (where it really, unquestionably, endangers the network.) And, as in the days when ISPs were sprouting up everywhere, anyone should be able to buy access to the network at block prices and no restrictions on what they do with the access so long as it doesn't endager the network. The reason the US is behind in telecom is precisely because of this sort of activity on the part of the telecom companies, who run these public frequencies for their own benefit rather than the public's.