You are probably free to leave without paying an Early Termination Fee.

Yes.
Are you still paying different rates, depending on which network you're calling to?

Encoders often embed various metadata, such as timestamps, etc. Chances are same file, same software, same system, encoded twice, will result in different hashes.

Sprint is CDMA, there's no SIM card to be swapped there. Also Boost and Virgin phones are locked to their respective carriers, you can't buy from one and use the other for service.

The point of having an unlocked iphone even on AT&T is to be able to use a local SIM card when you travel. Another reason would be to use an AT&T prepaid account, which would be a lot less expensive than their regular voice plans.

I believe the problem lies at the interface between humans and software. It appears that in this case the software ran into a situation that it cold not handle properly, and the humans were not trained to recognize this limitation. Kinda reminds me of people that trust GPS navigators blindly and end up in a river or stranded in some desert.

IIRC, ENIAC was used to compute the trajectory of artillery shells. The following ones were heavily involved in the design of nuclear weapons.

I suspect your ISPs are not also large media conglomerates that stand to lose if customers enjoy unlimited high speed streaming

I worked in a virtual team for 3 years and we were pretty successful. Here's how we did it:

1. Core hours are the single most important thing. Have everybody there at the same time. +/- 1-2 hrs are ok, but opposite timezone are not. We all worked on EST with schedules that varied by at most 1 hr.
2. Continuous IM presence. We also kept a couple of group chats open. One group chat can serve as "water cooler" chat, for swapping failblog links and general breeze shooting.
3. Group Video conferences. Not always on, you don't need to be distracted by someone burping when you want to focus on your code. Especially since pining somebody is as easy as an IM message. Skype works, but group video chat is not free
4. Virtual whiteboards, using wacom tablets. To be used during video conferences.
5. Collaborative editor, such as SubEthaEdit. For code reviews, note taking, etc.
6. Normal software engineering tools, dscm, wiki, issue tracker, etc

This stuff does not have to be expensive, it can be done with off the shelf software and equipment. I think more important is the set of rules and procedures that need to be established (see #1, core hours). Also the quality of people in the team is crucial, but that goes for collocated teams as well.

The map is not accurate. It says I have access to fiber (presumably FIOS), which I don't. It also claims I don't have access to Docsis 3 cable service, which I do.
And don't get me started on how spectacularly crappy it works on Safari and Firefox.