I would think that regions that have the most mobile phone users per square mile and that are the closest to major Internet hubs would have the best rates. So to me, it would make sense for 3G data to be more expensive in rural Alaska than in Queens, NY.

Then again, it might have more to do with taxation and government subsidies, as is the case with the huge difference in the pricing of gasoline worldwide. In The Netherlands, you can expect to pay $7.52 for a gallon of gasoline, while in Venezuela it costs only $0.19.

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/GasPrices.png

I think you're onto something with the region idea. All the major carriers offer nationwide plans because people expect to be able to travel pretty much anywhere and still have their phones work. That means that we all foot the bill for putting towers all over our insanely-large country because one day we may run out of gas in the middle of Nebraska and need to make a call.

The European nations, Japan, etc. are all much smaller and more densely populated, so the cost of covering the countries with towers is lower per person.

If you're really just going to use your phone in Queens, NY (and other fairly populated areas), you can go with a discount carrier like Boost Mobile, but you'll curse your frugality when you do actually stray from cities because their coverage map looks like this: http://www.boostmobile.com/coverage/ instead of this: http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/CoverageLocatorController...

Also, as I said in another comment, that graphic makes the difference in cost look way bigger than it is.

Finland:

31$/mo. for iPhone4 + 13$/mo. (dur. 2 yrs) for unrestricted 3G data until 1 Gb transferred, after which the speed is capped to 64 kbit/s.

or

26$/mo. (dur. 2 yrs) for HTC Desire including unlimited 3G data with unrestricted speed, free phone calls within the same carrier (covers over 1/2 of all Finns) and 2400 min of free calls/mo. to other domestic carriers.

translates to

44$/mo. for iPhone4 with crappier plan vs. 26$/mo. for HTC Desire with fully loaded plan. The difference is gigantic, but iPhone still sells like hot cakes.

Text messages cost 0,13$ apiece (single unit price for the most expensive carrier, median is lower)

iPad is not available atm.

Phoneless deals in Finland: 1Mbps 10 eur ($13)/mo, unlimited speed 14 eur ($18)/mo. Both with no data caps. Phone calls 0.07 eur/min and SMS 0.06 eur apiece. Oh yeah, and you get multiple sim cards, eg for your phone and netbook.

Yeah, the iPhone contract seems like gouging. I brought our unlocked phones in from Australia and just pay an off the shelf Elisa/Saunalahti unlimited data plan. Cheap, works great, including tethering.

Switzerland in contrary has pretty high prices compared to other EU and smaller countries. So the competition between the carriers is also an important factor. We have 3 big carriers here and one is in big amounts owned by the government.

I pay additional 16 bucks to get 500 MB (!!!) data for my plan...that's pretty high although we're a small country

Switzerland is the same size of The Netherlands (16,000 sq miles), but the two differ in some important ways: Switzerland is very mountainous while The Netherlands are completely flat, and there's only 8 million people living in Switzerland versus 17 million in The Netherlands.

So it doesn't surprise me that Switzerland has higher rates -- there are less customers per square mile, and I can imagine it being a bit harder to put up a cell tower on a mountain slope than in a meadow.