There's an excellent article in wired magazine about how iPhone is changing the cellphone industry.  It seems that iPhone has really helped change the balance of power between network providers, phone manufacturers and consumers.  I found it incredible to read that AT&T is paying apple $10 a month for each cellphone subscriber.  Not to mention how Apple for the first time was able to dictate to a carrier the specifications of the phone and even force them to change the way the network works (see the vmail system in iphone).

I agree with the article's assessment that the network is just a dumb pipe.