Mobile-Phone Spending in U.S. Sets Record on IPhone

It took a computer maker and a pager company to convince Americans a mobile phone is worth paying for... U.S. customers shelled out 40 percent more for handsets last quarter than a year earlier, just as Apple Inc. put its Web-browsing iPhone on sale and Research In Motion Ltd. brought out BlackBerry e-mail phones with video features. Spending rose to a record and jumped the most since at least 2005. Americans, previously hard-pressed to pay $50 for a phone, are now more like their European and Asian counterparts and paying $300 to $400 for the top devices.