Ok, thanks for that. Perhaps my perception is clouded in this regard. I've only lived in the US for a few months (in NYC). I'm from Australia. Whenever I've se

Ok, thanks for that. Perhaps my perception is clouded in this regard. I've only lived in the US for a few months (in NYC). I'm from Australia. Whenever I've seen phone plans they're part of cable plans (eg Time Warner) and the package options are either without phone or with ($30/month, unlimited nationwide). I was also in the US in the 90s and saw the same thing then. In Australia the move has been to cap plans, particularly for mobile. So you'll pay, say, $49/month for your phone and can use $400/month of credit on voice, SMS and data (actually a lot don't include data). Voice might be $0.50/minute, SMS 10c, data $100/GB, which may sound a lot but remember you're paying $49 for that notional $400. Why do they do this? Because customers like knowing that most of the time they pay $49/month and because if you go over your bill can quickly go up. So it's really a tax on the stupid. My nephew for example has had bills of hundreds in a month when in fact a $150 cap would be more than anyone could ever really use.