[Atrix 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Jade Eyed Wolf:
I'm not so sure that it's lobbying in general that needs to disappear from politics. In theory, lobbying is perfectly ok, as long as there is a level playing field.

There's nothing inherently wrong with physically having an audience with your local congressman or senator in order to express your concerns about public policy.

What REALLY needs to go are financially backed lobbying, -AND- corporate personhood. Also there should be financial limits imposed towards political campaign contributions.

So, in practice, this would mean that:

You could go to your local senator or congressman in person to express your grievances, and make suggestions on policy that represent your interests and the interests of your community. Likewise, I can just as easily do the exact same thing.

What we couldn't do, and what should be illegal, is take these representatives out to a fancy lunch while we talk, or buy them box seats for the local sports team, or effectively bribe them into doing our bidding.

Additionally, corporations would no longer be seen, or legally represented as individuals in the eyes of the law. So this would mean that big corporations could no longer directly contribute to political campaigns anymore. This leads into the final point.

Finally, if Mr. Randall Stephenson, or Mr. Ralph de la Vega from AT&T wish to express their financial support for a particular political candidate, as individual citizens, they are more than welcome to do so. However, if that's the case, as would be the case for any of us, they would not be legally allowed to contribute more than, say $5,000 (whether that's cash, products, services, or some combination of the above) -AND- that all MUST come right out of their pockets because it would be illegal for AT&T, as a whole entity, to contribute a single penny.

THAT is how it should be. Things would be WAY better in the country if we had rules like that. Imagine how that would change the wireless industry. The oil industry. The banking industry. Etc!

---------- Post added at 01:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:44 PM ----------

Yeah... and that's the biggest reason I don't really give a $H1T about LTE at this point. I'm going to be a stubborn ol' SOB and stick to my good old fashioned smartphone unlimited plan for as loooooong as I can.

Yeah, I know I won't be driving the fancy new "Ferrari" that LTE is, but so what? As far as I can tell, what's the point of having all that speed if all it's gonna do is get you to the barriers and limitations that much faster? My old 3G "Honda Civic" might not be anywhere near as fast, but those things last for freaking ever, and I can drive it as long as I want without a care in the world otherwise. Not to mention, as more and more people are getting off the 3G highway and taking the LTE superhighway instead, that just means traffic is getting lighter for me, and I can go a little bit faster ;)

P.S. Now that you're throttled, do a speed test and tell us what kind of "speeds" your getting now. How severe is the throttling? I mean, if you had a 25mbit connection before, and now you're down to a 3mbit connection, well then that's not so bad; you're basically back at 3G speeds. Now, if you're down to dial-up or 2G speeds, then screw LTE, change your APN to connect back up to HSPA instead of LTE; see if you still get throttled!