hey, saucer. ever see one?

ah! you have a good point. why more expensive? 3G is newer than GPRS/EDGE. the cost delta between EDGE and EV-DO is 1.5 - 2x!

for surfing from the phone, AFAIK, 3G doesn't offer so much advantage over EDGE because the processor becomes the bottleneck. as a modem, i think, the difference would be apparent.

and, yes, you're right. the U.S. telecommunication infrastructure typically lags Europe and Asia by several years. 3G is by no means ubiquitous over here.