Behold the wonder of that little device in your pocket. Cell phones have become such a crucial part of our lives, we may forget there was a time — not even 10 years ago —when most of us were dropping quarters in pay phones or waiting until we got back to our desks to check our voice mail.

Still, if you compare your cell phone with that other wonder of our day — the Internet — you must ask the U.S. wireless telephone industry (using your best Peggy Lee voice): “Is that all there is?” Will our little phones never become devices that we can buy anywhere and use with any network, like our laptops? Will we ever be able to update them ourselves with the hottest new applications, downloaded from the Web? Or will our mobile devices forever be controlled by one of the four big wireless carriers, who intentionally cripple features to make sure we don’t use up too much of their precious bandwidth?

The wireless industry deserves all the credit in the world for its successes. After investing billions building their networks with the public’s airwaves, today they have 219 million customers and $100 billion in annual revenue. But now people are beginning to ask whether the resulting giant wireless carriers — AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon — are harming innovation and consumer choice by so tightly controlling the cell phone hardware and applications that use their networks.

“In the wired world, their policies would, in some cases, be considered simply misguided, and in other cases be considered outrageous and perhaps illegal,” Columbia University law professor Tim Wu wrote in a report released last month.

In Europe, for example, consumers can buy a mobile phone and use it with any carrier. And the phones that use broadband service have such features as Wi-Fi access and unlimited Web browsing that no U.S. wireless carrier in the United States will allow. In fact, AT&T disabled the Wi-Fi functionality in the new Nokia E62, although it agreed to allow it on the new Apple iPhone (which, of course, you’ll be able to use only on the AT&T network). Elsewhere around the world, software developers are busy writing cool new applications for mobile devices, but not here. A highly restrictive development environment among U.S. carriers means “the applications on phones are mostly a joke,” according to one developer quoted in Wu’s report.

Two weeks ago Skype Communications — the leading provider of free, Web-based phone services — asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to confirm that consumers have a right to use applications and devices of their choosing on any wireless network, so long as doing so does not harm the network.

Skype contends that the FCC should apply the same rules to wireless networks that it has applied to wired telephone systems since a landmark 1968 ruling known as the Carterfone decision. Back then, the agency decided that the old AT&T monopoly could not prevent consumers from attaching a device known as the Carterfone (a coupler that linked a mobile radio to a telephone) to their handsets. The ruling paved the way for such innovations as the fax machine, the answering machine and (drum roll) the modem. In other words, Al Gore didn’t invent the Internet. The Carterfone ruling did.

Today’s wireless carriers are sounding a lot like the old Ma Bell. Between 90 percent and 95 percent of phones in the United States are sold by the carriers; in other countries that figure is just about reversed. Buy a Motorola V710 through Verizon and you’ll learn this from the Motorola Web site: “If you are a Verizon customer, all multimedia and Internet connection features in this software will be disabled due to carrier request.” Wu’s report further shows that AT&T limits its “unlimited” mobile broadband service to exclude movies, music, games, voice-over-IP and other Web-based uses.

Such tight control allows the Big Four to erect tollbooths that charge users for features, beyond simple data transmission, that are otherwise easily available elsewhere for free, and with higher quality.

Now the hardware and software makers are joining with consumer groups to challenge the carriers’ control. Democratic lawmakers will probably be a receptive audience to their complaints, which means the FCC may be under pressure to at least consider Skype’s petition to apply the Carterfone ruling to the wireless world.

A smart, forward-looking carrier would be the first in the market to voluntarily open its network to all compatible devices and software that did not harm its network. I’d bet the positive PR, in addition to selling more access, would give it quite a revenue boost.

But that network would also have to adopt some sort of metered pricing for bandwidth usage, rather than the current inexplicable practice of selling minutes of airtime. Carriers have long resisted metered pricing, which they believe would certify that they are merely conduits — or “dumb pipes,” as they derisively put it — rather than providers of content and “value-added services” in addition to access.

No such carriers exist, though, and the FCC isn’t about to force such a change. So rather than being the best dumb pipes money can buy, wireless networks will remain the clunkiest software developers and biggest bottlenecks in an era of otherwise incredible innovation.

Mike Mills is CQ’s executive editor for electronic publishing.