A deep problem seems to be a high barrier-to-entry for would-be competing carriers. If it was easy to start a business that charged rates people were happier with, someone would do it, and make a good deal of money. As things currently are, there's no real incentive for carriers to change -- they get away with it because consumers don't have a choice.
That barrier is impossibly high, at least in the US, because there's a constrained resource involved: spectrum. I suspect it's quite literally impossible to start a nationwide carrier at this point without congressional action to reallocate frequency bands from some other use.
