... but then they're hardly part of the Euro contingent >:-)

As far as the continent goes, dial-up for internet use went out of style around 2000. For a change, competition between the cable and telco monopolies somewhat worked, so the standard deal went from 384k down/128 up 3GB/month in 2000 to 4.4 Mbps down/256 k up 10GB month for about $35 now. In France, you get that for $20/month*. Paris has 8Mb/s down for that money and the other countries are rolling out 8Mb/s in the metro areas.

As for the cell roaming charges, they were high enough to attract unwelcome (to the operators...) attention from the Eurocrats, but the last time I looked at US roaming charges (Verizon's), they weren't that far off.

* If the $/\ufffd exchange rate can be kept steady long enough for the time needed to read this...