From talking to some Americans about it, they seem to think their system is actually better - mainly based on a misunderstanding of how it works in the rest of the world (their point was that if you have a French mobile phone, and you call another French mobile phone that unbeknown to you is roaming in Australia, you'd have to pay through the nose. Of course that's not how it works - you just pay for a local French connection and the roamer picks up the difference).
