USB was defacto standard for data transfer, especially on PCs, but the /connector/ on the phone side was not at all standards compliant or uniform across makes and models, and up until the passage of that law, it wasn't uncommon for the power port to be separate. Now that is basically unheard of. I'm not saying the law is the only reason for this change, but it is clearly a big factor, yet it is omitted from this article.
Indeed, it was common for a USB-to-proprietary cable to be sold separately for at an additional charge. Now phone manufacturers are forced to resort to software to make it difficult to move data between phones and desktops. ;-)
