In Sweden, all locations (including the "northern wilderness") offer GSM/GPRS coverage from most providers. 3G is available in most locations as well, which is nice.

How popular are store-value cards in the U.S.? I don't see why anyone would want a "regular" subscription without a ceiling for the bandwidth usage or call durations. "Oh hai, I downloaded the Blu-ray version of Catwoman overnight via this bittorrent application I installed on my phone." Almost all Bluetooth-enabed phones are subject to Bluesnarfing, too.

"Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica and is widely regarded as the most important innovator in scientific and technical computing today." - Stephen Wolfram