In China, after paying for the cost of the iphone as downpayment (so around 700$), it costs 10$/month to get 15 hours call and 1.2 Gb/month data plan... That's

In China, after paying for the cost of the iphone as downpayment (so around 700$), it costs 10$/month to get 15 hours call and 1.2 Gb/month data plan... That's under a unicom plan. Now, this is not all of Asia, it's mostly because China is still not a very expensive place to live (although the price of housing in Shanghai is starting to look more and more like any international capitals...). When I lived in Japan, I paid 60$ for a phone subscription with 3 hours calls and no data plan (this was 4 years ago) and France is not much better than the US, plans easily exceeds 40 euros for "unlimited" data plan where you're not allowed to download more than 500Mb and with this you don't get much hours of call either... It's true though that the US is one of the only country I know where you pay to receive calls and to receive SMS.