The big difference here is that, at the very least, you'll likely have your monopolistic issues resolved within your LIFETIME.
Bell Canada, our incumbent telecom, has been operating for over 130 years and was granted a legal monopoly from our government which they are now abusing.
Do you actually pay in excess of $80 for only 5MB of access in Spain, as per your claims of paying twice the price? Are you throttled? Are you bandwidth capped? Is your regulatory body continually siding with the monopolistic firms?
My understanding is that from the statistical survey which was completed, only in latin America was there a specific nation which ranked higher than Canada for cost per MB. I can't recall exactly which one, perhaps Brazil.
I can believe that not all of Europe has great Internet access, but a majority of nations that make up the EU certainly do. At the very least, you have the option of relocating elsewhere in a far more expedient manner. In fact, isn't that what many youngsters in Spain are doing now anyway?
What are you talking about here? Cell data plans, or broadband?
Since the iPhone turned up, *everything* changed in Canada, and the iPhone was solely responsible - in fact - I'm pretty sure the massive MacRumors Rogers Canada thread was partly responsible (one of the largest number of negatives). Here is my Fido Plan:
6Gb of Data (thats 6144Mb) : $30
2000 minutes: $40
Voicemail, Caller ID etc.: $10
Total is $80 plus tax. Thats it. No system access, no additional 911 fee.
And you get tethering for no additional cost, or restrictions, unlike the US, or the UK.
So, if you can keep your usage under 6Gb, you can DROP your cable / ADSL internet if you want to, and broadband from anywhere, with 3GS getting speeds of 350Mb/sec to 800Mb/sec in the city.
This pricing has been the case for a year and half now (since the iPhone 3G launched).
$80 for 5Mb? Change your provider! The $30/6Gb deals come when the iPhone models come out, and are available for a few months after, but if you spoke really nicely to a customer service agent, and said it was a deal breaker for changing to them, well, who knows - they may be able to accommodate you, or you may have to wait until summer.
Before the iPhone though, it was really, really, really terrible here - I do agree.
Just shows what an industry disruptor Apple can be - amazing really.