In the United States, interim Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Copps is calling for an investigation to establish whether exclusive handset deals are a restriction upon innovation.

He joins others, such as former Presidential hopeful Senator John Kerry, in questioning whether agreements between network operators and handset manufacturers “restrict consumer choice or harm the development of innovative devices.”

Surely, or so the argument goes, were you to own an iPhone, you would be better off being able to choose your network operator, rather than being required to sign a contract with AT&T in the United States or, in the United Kingdom, O2?

Logically, were you to be given the choice, coverage and cost would dictate your decision. So, by introducing competition, services would improve and prices fall. Because, instead of simply exploiting exclusivity to attract subscribers, network operators would be forced to improve their proposition. Free markets are ultimately to everybody’s benefit.

Seductive as such a thesis might superficially appear, it becomes less compelling upon examination.

Already, at least in Germany, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom, O2 and Vodafone share network infrastructure. Orange and Vodafone are also working together towards a full network sharing agreement in the UK.

With continuing network consolidation, the coverage offered by different operators will eventually become identical. It’s a topic that has been touched on before on this Blog. When that happens, and without handset exclusivity to market their services, they will have but two alternatives.

Either they can compete in an ultimately unstoppable and inevitably destructive spiral of progressively cutting prices. Should they do so all profit eventually disappears and investment in network enhancement and improved infrastructure becomes unaffordable.

Or, alternatively, like purveyors of lager, they will be forced to differentiate themselves by an ever increasing spend on advertising. Might T-Mobile decide to become “reassuringly expensive”? Or will Virgin claim to be “probably the best network operator in the world”?

In reality, it is hard to see how either option could ever be in the best interests of consumers.

Nor is it easy to envisage how handset exclusivity discourages innovation. Instead, to remain competitive, network operators have no choice but to proactively partner with manufacturers to devise better and more innovative devices.

Indeed, carried to its logical extreme, to guarantee exclusivity, those operators will begin to design and manufacture handsets themselves. And this, of course, is exactly what Hutchison Whampoa, who own 3, did when they set up INQ Mobile. As a result we already have the INQ 1, a phone greeted with much enthusiasm by many reviewers.

Hutchison might never have invested in INQ had they not been committed to 3. Again it is hard here to see how exclusivity has caused either innovation or consumers to suffer.

Of course, the suggestion remains that the biggest network operators will always be offered the best deals and the hottest handsets. And this, or so the theory goes, must disadvantage smaller networks and, consequently, the consumer. Because, carried through to its logical conclusion, if one network operator has all the best handsets, they must ultimately come to dominate the rest. As proof, some might think, you only have to look at what having exclusive rights to the iPhone has meant to the fortunes of AT&T and O2.

However this presupposes that companies as sophisticated as Nokia and Samsung would willingly allow the emergence of one pre-eminent network operator able to dictate terms. Far better, from their perspective, to prevent any operator from becoming dominant by playing each off against the other. Indeed, in protecting their own interests, the manufacturers are likely to do far more to safeguard consumers than either the FCC or Ofcom.

Similarly, by doing exclusive deals, handset manufacturers can guarantee distribution for their products, with their cost to the consumer subsidised by the network operator.

Senator Kerry was encouraged to raise his concerns by the Rural Cellular Association, a group representing the interests of 80 rural wireless providers. It is perhaps easier to see how they, rather than those who might be their customers, could suffer from being unable to compete for handset exclusivity with larger operators.

The only downside to any consumer wanting, say, an iPhone would be were AT&T unable, unlike one of the rural companies, to provide coverage in that part of the country. But, were the rural company to have a roaming agreement with AT&T, all parties would benefit.

The reality is, for most mobile phone users, the advantages of handset exclusivity outweigh the disadvantages.

In fact, to argue against exclusivity would be to say that Steve Jobs was wrong when he decided to stop licensing the Macintosh OS to third-party clone manufacturers back in 1997. By retaining exclusivity he made it possible for Apple to survive as a hardware manufacturer. Had he not done so there since would have been no iMac, no iPod, and certainly no iPhone.

And, without the iPhone, whatever would have happened to smartphone innovation and evolution? And where would consumers be then?