In the world of tech journalism, there are few people who are as well respected as Walt Mossberg. After all, it takes a little bit of clout to get Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to sit down and have a chat with each other. In short, when Mossy speaks, geeks listen. So that’s why its particularly exciting that Mossberg has seen fit to pen an anti-locked mobile phone tirade. Sure, a lot of other folks have been down that path already but Mossberg’s manifesto is quite possibly the most fiery rant we’ve seen yet on the topic. In the article, titled “Free My Phone,” Mossberg calls the U.S. “the laughingstock of the mobile-technology world” and goes so far as to compare American mobile carriers to “the old bureaucracies of communism”. What’s needed, in his opinion, is a little bit of market regulation from the U.S. government–the same sort of regulation that opened up the wired phone networks in the 1970s. It worked in the past and there’s no reason why it wouldn’t work now; the only question is whether or not that sort of regulatory legislation could ever be passed in this day and age.

For more on Mossberg’s take:
– see this editorial from All Things D