The Washington Post's Kim Hart today looks at the way the imminent arrival of the iPhone is affecting other mobile operators' plans.

Sprint is promoting the $99 Samsung UpStage as a lower-priced competitor to the iPhone, which costs $499 to $599 with a two-year service plan from AT&T Wireless. "Such defensive moves are critical for Sprint, which has already lost subscribers to other mobile phone companies and is bracing for others who might flock to AT&T, the sole carrier for the iPhone," Hart writes.

"Wireless companies traditionally put more advertising muscle behind the quality of their networks rather than the coolness of their phones," Hart adds. "But the iPhone is being hailed, even before a single customer has gotten their hands on it, as an industry game-changer. It promises to marry technological prowess with simplicity in a way that has critics saying it could be the first phone that shifts the spotlight away from a cell phone's primary purpose: making calls."

"Now the intrinsic value of being mobile is in the device itself," says Gartner researcher Mike McGuire. "That's going to mean big changes in the carrier world."

More here from FORTUNE Magazine.