[Rathji]

I think you guys are seriously under estimating what American's pay for their phones/plans.

These are just some random examples:

Galaxy S3
Verizon:
$99 on a 2 year plan. No early upgrade.
Rogers:
$49 on a 3 year plan, with the ability to hardware upgrade after 30 months.

Note 2:
Verizon:
$299 on a 2 year plan. - No early Upgrade.
Rogers:
$149 on a 3 year plan. Early upgrade after 30 months.

IPhone 5 (16 GB)
$199, 2 year plan, no early upgrade.
$179, 3 year plan. Early upgrade after 30 months.

So realistically, you have 6 months of extra time with a phone, and are playing less across the board, from $20 with the iPhone 5 (Apple's fault though) to $150 less on a Note 2.

Sure, we might have it a little worse here since those extra 6months do have some value, which might be more than the difference in what you paid for the phone, but not enough to kick up a huge stink over.

On plans, I think we are much harder off. A basic $70 plan here is a $50 plan there, but I have no idea how hard it is to negotiate your plan down there. For example, my current plan would be about $80 on Verizon, and I pay $60 here.