In San Diego, all the big providers offer mobile internet... for no less than $50/month, IN ADDITION to a voice account, which will cost a minimum of $30/month. Including taxes, and you'll end up paying close to $100 a month... for an impoverished internet experience compared to broadband at home, with a big screen (compared to a smartphone). With rates like that, it's no wonder that consumers aren't going for it.

There is no mystery as to why U.S. cell phone users limit their mobile internet use. The author hits the nail on the head; Crappy connection speeds and expensive usage fees make mobile internet use prohibitive. Anyone who keeps track of these things knows that the rest of the industrialized world (i.e. Europe and Asia) have far superior phones, cell networks, and customer service.

The less than lackluster sales of the Iphone are proof. It's truly an amazing tool, but people have not flocked to it because AT&T charges too much for a decent amount of data transfer and their data network is spotty at best. Why would I sign up for an expensive data plan when my regular cell phone coverage is not 100% reliable?

Mobile carriers here in the US have no incentive to offer good products or customer service while the weak FCC is watching them (or not). I truly believe that US carriers would be fined millions if they had to contend with the European regulatory agencies.

I don't know if this holds true for most other Americans, but I personally just want to use my cell phone as a phone. Another factor is that Americans spend more time in cars than the rest of the world. People in Europe and Asia take advantage of their far superior and expansive public transit systems. If I want directions I will use the GPS in my car. If I want to find a restaraunt near me, I use my GPS. Since people in Europe and Asia aren't in a car most of the time, they have to utilize their cell phone for these services.

As I have stated, there are many reasons why Americans don't utilize the mobile internet that much. I think the only "people" worried about this lack of usage are the mobile carriers themselves. They see this huge potential revenue stream and want to tap it. Americans are smart enough to see this and have basically thumbed their noses at the greedy corporate pigs that run AT&T, Verizon, etc.

Speaking personally, even if the networks were flawless (and we all know they are far from that), I'm not interested in paying $100/month, on top of my home broadband (which gets far more use than anything I would ever use w/ a phone). The $50/month for my basic cell phone service is more than enough money out of my pocket.

Side note; I might be alone on this, but I want a cell phone that's just a phone. I'm not interested in a built-in MP3, a camera, video, or whatever else the companies are trying to sell. My favorite phone way back when was the old Motorola flip-phone, mainly because in addition to being just a phone (and an easy to operate one), it was rugged as hell (dropped on concrete several times and not a scratch or failure to operate). Today's phones (currently use a base-model Nokia) feel fragile as hell and I doubt could take the punishment. I'm also not a fan of touch-screens (easily scratched, dirtied, etc), so even if the iPhone wasn't so overpriced (it is), I still wouldn't buy it.

uhmm.. ok well either if your arent or are interested in paying that $100/month you would have to anyways..depending on the phone and service plans that you get with it..And there are phones that pay less than $50/month rather thatn the full $50, some go for less so you don thave to pay more.

I think that you are on your own on that..just because people these days are in to phones that are in or hip or what ever you call it.
and yeah i guess your feeling the phones back then, but that was BACK THEN..this is now. and yeah you wouldnt buy the iPhone and you DONT have to..its what you want. Those scratches and operated phone calls can be avoided now a days too. all you need is a phone cover and thats it..a few scratches..oh well, at least you have a phone. jeeze!

Any phone in my opinion is great. what ever you feel like getting, GET it..

Sad to see that us Canadians have even lower stats than the Americans. Of course I think most of our text messaging is SMS.

dfd

In reponse to ?????? -- either you must be a 12 year old or you are just dumb. Read clearyly what the other comments are saying and how it's related to the article.

I'm using Rogers in Canada. I bought a 3.5G phone in Europe(E-Ten x800) and when I got back to Canada and I saw the little 3G icon lit on the phone I was happily deciding to test it. I went on google.com I search for the word "test" and then I loaded the first page. Everything was very fast, I was really impressed. Knowing that it might be expensive I've decided to check on that. After calling customer support I found out that I've downloaded 480kb at 5c/kb and I owe them 24 dollars. TWENTY FOUR DOLLARS for 2 internet pages!!! This is outrageous! Because was the first time me doing this they have a policy that allowed me to be reimbursed. Rogers sucks big time, I hope they will disappear in a terrible financial crash. So they have all the equipment but they just leave it rust because not even a fu..ing rich CEO won't navigate the internet at these rates.
I went in Romania and on a "prepaid" card I was able to navigate the internet at a rate of 0.5 Euro for 1Mb. This is only like 20 times cheaper, and it was a prepaid account. I think the cell phone companies in NA are not mature enough to release the hounds. It's a big congregate of idiots and a monopoly. I remember a story couple of years ago when small company in NY "dared" to offer at a very resonable price mobile internet. They went down in flames: actually Bell bought them in order to destroy the competition. And yes in Canada situation is even worst: there are 2 GSM providers but only one owner (Rogers) behind both of them. So it will take years until they will offer something resonable. I promise I wont use their 5cents / minute internet. I mean EVER.

Everyone else has summed it up nicely: mobile internet access in the United States is both a) painfully slow and b) painfully expensive. At home I pay $45 a month for a cable modem connection that gives me up to 15Mb down and 768Kb up. On my smartphone (which I use mostly to get email from work, plus occasional web surfing) I pay $49 a month (plus voice and SMS charges, etc) for something more akin to a 56k modem connection, or maybe a 128Kbps ISDN line if I'm lucky. Unfortunately most modern web sites are optimized for high-speed connections and so loading a page in my phone's browser can take 2-3 minutes sometimes.

The only things that I usually use my mobile data plan for are corporate email, Google Maps (which is a great mobile application), and to read the headlines while I'm in the can at work. For everything else it's just too slow. I'm not even sure how they can legally call it "broadband" because it's so damn slow. If it weren't for the corporate email I'd probably drop it altogether because it's just not worth it at the prices they charge.

The one feature that would make it much more useful would be if I could tether my phone to my laptop for Internet access where not other access was available. Unfortunately, that costs an extra $15 a month, even though you're just re-using the same internet connectivity that you already have through your phone. Besides, WiFi has become so prevalent lately that finding unsecured APs (or free WiFi) is almost trivial. In any area remote enough to not have WiFi available you probably couldn't get the mobile broadband either.

When I got my iPhone the charge for unlimited internet access was an additional $20 per month. Not sure what carriers people are talking about for the $50 per month (unless they're mixing up the cost to get cellular internet access for a notebook computer with that of a phone).

Even at $20 a month, I don't really use the internet side enough to justify it. Some of that is my fault (as I haven't invested the time to learn everything I can do with it). But it is a cool toy.

Michal

One of the problems is that the Japanese and European companies are heavily subsidized by their governments. In the US cellular companies don't receive the RUS, Rural Utilities Service, funding that the land line companies get. This results in less investment in infrastructure. Remember we are still a capitalist country for now while most of the EU is Socalist. Our phone companies have to make enough profit, the amount could be argued, or they go out of business. Also it is hard to compare the US to EU because of sheer size. A good example is the comparison of the Autobaghn and our interstate system. The Autobaghn is roughly 7,000 miles and the interstate system is 24,000 to 27,000 miles. Big difference in the amount of revenue required to build and operate wireless networks just to cover these well traveled systems.

What about tethering? Most carriers don't seem to want you to use your mobile for connecting your PC or they want you to pay through the nose for it.

Another thing to consider is what someone else alluded to. The wireless networks in the U.S. do not have that great of coverage. I live in a fairly large and high disposable-income area, yet I lose my signal at the local mall. What makes it even more amusing is my carrier has a sales kiosk in that very same mall! They have to use a land line for their data connection.

Otherwise, the article hits the nail on the head. High prices, slow speeds, spotty coverage, not tethering, bad service. Why ever would we use the product? Every day I consider throwing my cell in the trash can.

Americans are getting ripped on all cell phone retated charges, eg paying to recieve texts and calls. In NZ its fairly cheap but no where near as cheap as other countries.

That's all due to greedy little bean counters that run these companies....

I think US luck enaugh than Indonesia. In Indonesia we only have GRPS for flatrate. There is HSPDA @100 KBPS / 800 kbps at 100 IDR / minute, which is very very var away from real HSDPA spped.

I am probably one of the few people in the US that do use mobile internet. I use it for everything. I read the news check my email. And I used to be able to connect my old phone to my laptop and use it and 3G service is not soo bad. But I lost that phone and got an iPhone and its a pretty crippled phone other then the browser. You can't send anything over its bluetooth you can't connect it to your computer and use its connection. and on top of that the Edge network is like going back to 56k. And at least back then pages were made for slow connections. Loading a page like myspace can take up to 2 minutes and that is if it decides to actually work. Sometimes you can't even get a connection to the data network. even though it says it is connected and you have full bars of service. But I still use it a lot none the less. I average 100-150MB a month is data for web browsing and email since thats all you can do with an iphone. I don't talk very much on my phone. I have the cheapest voice package at $45 plus 20 for 200 text and unlimited data So $65 a month. I mostly use the website Meebo for aim since everyone I know is always on that and that only counts as data. But really if you have a smart phone you are force to pay for PDA connect plans that run at $45 a month on top of your bill. $100 a month is insane. for crippled internet and email.

In the US cellular companies don't receive the RUS, Rural Utilities Service, funding that the land line companies get. This results in less investment in infrastructure.

Yes, due to corporate greed.

Remember we are still a capitalist country for now while most of the EU is Socalist. Our phone companies have to make enough profit, the amount could be argued, or they go out of business.

US telco's make record breaking profit every year.

Also it is hard to compare the US to EU because of sheer size. A good example is the comparison of the Autobaghn and our interstate system. The Autobaghn is roughly 7,000 miles and the interstate system is 24,000 to 27,000 miles. Big difference in the amount of revenue required to build and operate wireless networks just to cover these well traveled systems.

Again, US telco's make record profit every year. And to compare your US vs EU statement here, the EU has higher corporate taxes than the US, yet we still lag behind in tech adoption vs the EU.

I'd like to underline that, at least in Italy, there aren't so many wifi networks around (e.g. no Starbucks). So if we want to use the Internet while not at home/work, the mobile plus a circa 35$/month flat connection, is the only way to go.

Here in South Africa it's the exact opposite. Our DSL access is very expensive. $70 for 384kb and 3 GIG of bandwidth per month. Compare this to HSDPA 3G access speeds of 3.5MB/s to 7MBs/s and costs of 2.5c american per megabyte and it becomes obvious why we have more mobile internet users than dsl users. Note we have no subsidies on any of our networks. We even have faster and more advance cellular networks than many european countries.

In response to danix, Rogers is known for not giving you what your going to use. You obviously didnt have a data plan with them and therefor had to pay through the nose for a service not on your plan. That being said, the rates arent going to be that great either, but its there for a reason.

In my corner of Canada there are now 2 data plans from rogers. 1) 5c/kb. The second option is a 7$/month unlimited plan that requires you to accept a 3 year contract (on all of your Rogers products). Upon closer inspection of the TOS for my area (and speaking with a customer service rep. on the phone) it turns out there is a 20$/month per product cancellation fee.

Recently they tried to charge me 77$+tax per month for basic cable tv service. That was their cheapest rate. I don't even have a cable box.

My cellphone bill was 63$ this month. I have an old plan that offers me 250 daytime minutes (of which I used 47). If I was to switch to their new 150 daytime minute play I will pay 5$/month extra.

They are simply infuriating to deal with. My bill has been wrong 9 months in a row now. A couple months ago my bill was unintentionally doubled. That's when I snapped and started canceling my services with them. To make things even better it takes an average of 3 transfers to get a hold of anybody who's able to make sense of their billing system enough to tell me that yes, there was an error and yes they will try and fix it.

The newest irritant in dealing with this cesspool corporation is their "heavily accented initial point of contact customer service department" whom are perpetually "updating their systems" but who try to sell you every service they offer that you don't already have before transferring you to somebody who can "help you with your issue". How they know exactly what services I don't already have when they are "updating their systems" is insulting.

As a matter of fact, it's almost as insulting as their unlimited use cellphone data plan. It is for "On-Device-Only" browsing. They offer no data plans to use your cellphone as a highspeed modem for your laptop. Even with an unlimited data plan you get to pay 5c/kb for that service.

So why is it we don't use technology available in our mobile devices?

I don't know about you... but I'm not rich enough to be lighting Cuban cigars with 100$ bills while I play bumper cars with collection of Bugatti Veyrons for fun, so I certainly can't afford to browse the web with my mobile device.

Why would I would internet on my telephone? That's as useless as my toaster having internet...give me a break. Only dorks would sit there trying to email/web surf on thir little cell phone. geeks!

Maybe other countries can do more because the companies serving their customers are fewer and have more power, because of crooked government policies which restrict competition. Maybe the way ITT once was---they had good service in the old days, remember? Just got back from Italy, and their cell phone rates are very high. Average use over there may be 200 minutes per phone per month, here in the US the rates allow us to spend an average of 900 minutes per month. Good service because of lack of competition but high rates as a result. Our companies are too small to get things going?????

Maybe other countries can do more because the companies serving their customers are fewer and have more power, because of crooked government policies which restrict competition. Maybe the way ITT once was---they had good service in the old days, remember? Just got back from Italy, and their cell phone rates are very high. Average use over there may be 200 minutes per phone per month, here in the US the rates allow us to spend an average of 900 minutes per month. Good service because of lack of competition but high rates as a result. Our companies are too small to get things going?????

USA cell phone service totally sucks.
I get excellent high-speed Internet service from the 3rd-world for about $20 a month UNLIMITED (1+ mbps). From the rice-fields in Thailand I can get WCDMA, GPS/GPRS. The phones are the same Nokia/Samsung/motorola,etc you can get in the rest of southeast Asia/Europe - n95 for example. The providers are 1-2-GO, AIS, DTAC, orange, etc. AND NO STUPID SERVICE PLANS. You buy the phone at a PHONE STORE (thousands available), then pick a service (the SIM card), then re-fill used minutes at any phone store, 7-11, or online/automated. Most people(there) don't bother with more costly DSL/cable modems. Their PCs get high-speed internet from the cell phones via bluetooth.
Like I said, the States has sub-third world service.
my 2+ cents,.

I'd offer one thing that nobody has mentioned yet - the rate of private automobile use in the US. Many other countries are more dependent on transit, which a) runs on fixed routes which are easier to serve with wireless than the US interstate highway system, and b) relives travelers of the obligation of driving the vehicle, giving them more time to use mobile Internet devices.

--One of the problems is that the Japanese and European companies are heavily subsidized by their governments. In the US cellular companies don't receive the RUS, Rural Utilities Service, funding that the land line companies get. This results in less investment in infrastructure. Remember we are still a capitalist country for now while most of the EU is Socalist.--

It seems that all the dead-horse-beating the hardline free marketeers have been doing the last decade or so has some people brainwashed. The wireless carriers in the United States are, by and large, the land line companies. I guarantee that Verizon or AT&T receive more gov't funding in gross than any EU or Japanese carrier. There are only two or three major backbone providers left in the US - all the smaller ones have been absorbed by the AT&T or the Verizon behemoths. Someone mentioned regulatory fines would likely be in the millions if these companies were subjected to EU laws - when their antitrust laws are factored in, it'd be more like TRILLIONS in fines. Those of you with Verizon: go look at the disclaimers on your plans. if you don't have the unlimited data plan, you're probably getting zapped at $1.99 /MB. The evil part is that the contract specifically states that this includes ADVERTISING, which the carrier sells [another profit source, of course] out to various "strategic partners." What they don't tell you is that the carrier has absolute control over the size of the ads - so you may load a text only page, like craigslist, at 80 kb usage. But Vz pushes three ads to you in the process, all weighing in at 950kb or more. Talk about double dipping.

Bottom line is this: until we elect representatives willing to grind all exploitative industries into the ground with crushing tax increases, these corporations will continue to screw the people. period.

The reason is far more simple: Most Americans don't want to be connected to the internet 24/7. Personally, I would not pay for mobile internet, even it was just as good as the internet on my desktop. I have a mobile phone to call people. Thats all I need it for. I don't want to check my e-mail away from the office, I'm not working. I'm not the only one that feels this way either. I'm on the net all day at work, I have it at home. I happen to enjoy getting away from it.

Manufacturers have been trying to get Americans to adopt mobile internet for a while. We're not taking it in mass numbers. There just isn't a solid market for it.

Guy who wrote this has never been to Australia...

The guy who wrote this article didn't read the charts too well. Yeah, America is below average, but when the top performer in internet usage only yields 20%, it says something about mobile internet entirely. Email is another story, but if you take Japan out of the picture (who notably does very little texting anymore consequently), they're actually average with the rest of the western world. It's not just the providers, it's the culture.

Us Capitalist/White Supremacist/Rednecks aren't ready for cell phone internet...we barely use landlines. I communicate locally with a series of obnoxious noises from the rusted out muffler of my pickup truck.