Couldn't agree with you more!
I am on the old 1X network on a Treo650 and they are still charging full price, same as newer users/units on the EVDO higher speed. So for $25 bucks I get 4mbs of data. $30 per mb after that if I go over the package max. A few 1mb web pages and your DONE.
Forget about if you dare to send an image 'file'-jpg. That is considered somehow different and charged additional.
Text messaging is just a crime here. Its like the game of blocking and then charging you extra for your call-display to work(approx $60per yr). The hardware itself was already inherently capable of knowing the incoming call number.

The signal is already digital in the first place be it audio for voice or so-called text messaging which to me is a 'down grading' from the switching already needed for real time audio voice. Yet they are getting away with charging "extra" for these 'features'?

In Canada, a lot of this 'infrastructure' has been in place for some time now, so the argument that is often peddled by these carriers about population and costs of 'development' etc. is bogus. Profit Mongering is the motive and I find being a client service specialist myself, they are missing the real point here, dragging behind the States by easily a decade. Really there is no reason for that. We invented and manufacture half this stuff in the first place, here in Canada!

Public access hotspots?! In Ottawa, good luck with that, and to think this is the nations capital. ( read as sarcastically light hearted)