We had a similar situation here in the UK until last year, when the major carriers began offering bolt-ons which included Unlimited Web browsing (limited to 200Mb).

On the 1st February this year O2 have revamped their tariffs and on £35/month and above you can now choose Free Unlimited Personal Web Browsing (no maximum limit, just no teathering to other devices and nothing that causes DoS).

On the 1st February is signed stright up and my mobile browsing evolved.

Now with no concerns about my download usage, I can access up-to-date news and weather reports and I can surf without have to worry about the charge. I can also visit media rich sites and download .cabs, email attachments and YouTube clips as and when the need/desire arises.

O2 have also began rolling out HSDPA cover which improves my GPRS '56k modem' speeds by a factor of 10 with a regular download rate of 1Mb line.

So for me, 3G is now a must! 

 I know I will like having 3G for my data, but my wife brought up a good point:  "Why do I want faster internet if I can't get service in half the placed I go to in town?"

 That and the fact that 3G networks will drain batteries faster as well due to maintaining multiple tower connections........        

What most carriers here in the US are doing is putting multiple batteries or extended batteries into their smart and PDA phones to help those who use their phones alot especially using 3g data. For those that just use their phone for a phone you get double the life of the extended battery and those of you who are like me get through the day with battery life to spare. And to say about the 3g coverage.. Where 3g is unavaliable, you fall back to EDGE/GPRS or 1xRTT/CDMA2000 the speeds just arent as fast but this also saves the battery life.

Basically, 3G service is great because it does help with call transmission, faster data (especially large files, like streaming video), and it gives us one more way to get people to add services. The hard part, especially in rural areas (like mine) is explaining to a customer that the 3G service is limited to larger towns only (due to licences) and the companies we partner with may never get to 3G before LTE debuts. Rural America is still a no-way-it-is-a-one-size-fits-all issue with wireless.

Biomehanika:

 We had a similar situation here in the UK until last year, when the major carriers began offering bolt-ons which included Unlimited Web browsing (limited to 200Mb).

On the 1st February this year O2 have revamped their tariffs and on £35/month and above you can now choose Free Unlimited Personal Web Browsing (no maximum limit, just no teathering to other devices and nothing that causes DoS).

On the 1st February is signed stright up and my mobile browsing evolved.

Now with no concerns about my download usage, I can access up-to-date news and weather reports and I can surf without have to worry about the charge. I can also visit media rich sites and download .cabs, email attachments and YouTube clips as and when the need/desire arises.

O2 have also began rolling out HSDPA cover which improves my GPRS '56k modem' speeds by a factor of 10 with a regular download rate of 1Mb line.

So for me, 3G is now a must! 

It's nice that US carriers have pretty much gone to a all-you-can-eat model for data. It's just trying to show people why they need to spend $20/30/45 per month more is worth it, even with all the time you save.

I've had a 3G device and unlimited tariff for what must be a couple of years now. The first thing I do is disable 3G to help with battery life and only re-enable it when I really need the extra speed which is rarely. If a new machine was smaller and didn't have 3G I'd go for the reduced form factor any day of the week.

Welcome Dave !

 

Cheers Laura!

Athough I can regular surf on my phone for an hour or two at a time, a also have a large number of times where I dive on for just 5 minutes while reading an article from an RSS feed. At these times, I'm happy for 3G speeds as the majority of the those 5 minutes are spent reading and not waiting for a page to load using a slow GPRS connection.

I'm regularly on the interenet on my phone or watching video clips and movies or listening to music. So, for me, my phone lives on charge, be that at home, at work or in the car.