[pmoehring]

This throws up various questions:

- Is the UK market simply more competitive, and is the fight over individual customers tougher? I.e. need the "other" smartphones be cheaper to compete?

- Besides the hardware, what are potential cost drivers? It seems that the UK networks are much stronger and more ready to deal with the iPhone/smartphone traffic vs. the US - yet the prices are cheaper.

- On competition: servicing a smaller country like the UK is much easier and less capital intensive than servicing the large USA. As networks are about nationwide coverage, the big 3 in the US can dictate prices much easier. Also, setting high roaming prices for smaller networks' users will discourage competition from below. Is regulation good for the UK customers? (there's a lot of roaming regulation in the EU and UK)

- In the UK, especially Blackberry is still a very strong contender in the smartphone segment. Anecdotal evidence: kids very often own Blackberries and are addicted to BBM here. Why are UK customers more "gullible" to buy a Blackberry vs the US? I would chalk it up to the difference in sophistication of the mobile usage.

TL; DR: Smartphones & data plans are hella expensive in the US.