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There's no such thing as unlimited media streaming, and prices are usually $30/gigabyte at best for prepaid.
See for yourself. Here are comanies that offer full nation-wide coverage (not just small urban areas). Make sure you check the prices for additional data.

Telus, Bell, Rogers, Virgin, Koodo.

>I don't get "smartphones are too expensive."

It must be nice to live in such luxury. Believe it or not, there are people in the US and Canada who simply cannot afford expensive items like smartphones. I'm guessing you don't pay 70+% of your income to rent. And don't even start with the "you can get one for free..." bit either. "Free" means you have to sign up for an overpriced contract. And have a credit card or driver's license-- both which are expensive luxuries as well.

>phone plans with plenty of (non-video, non-streaming) Internet access can be found for something like $25/month from places like Virgin Mobile

Nice try. VirginMobile's website clearly shows ZERO data for the minimum package of $30. Add another $5 and you get a whopping 50 megabytes of usage! Wow, that's real useful. Prepaid isn't much better. and There's no way in hell I'd even consider their 40cents/min (yes, forty) with no contract.

>I don't get "smartphones are too expensive."

It must be nice to live in such luxury. Believe it or not, there are people in the US and Canada who simply cannot afford expensive items like smartphones. I'm guessing you don't pay 70+% of your income to rent. And don't even start with the "you can get one for free..." bit either. "Free" means you have to sign up for an overpriced contract. And have a credit card or driver's license-- both which are expensive luxuries as well.

>phone plans with plenty of (non-video, non-streaming) Internet access can be found for something like $25/month from places like Virgin Mobile

Nice try. VirginMobile's website clearly shows ZERO data for the minimum package of $30. Add another $5 and you get a whopping 50 megabytes of usage! Wow, that's real useful. Prepaid isn't much better. and There's no way in hell I'd even consider their 40cents/min (yes, forty) with no contract.

Congrats on living in a major metropolitan area. The other 99% of the world still has to pay for texts.

Eh?
Canada. While big cities used to be the one ones that had "unlimited" plans, nowadays anywhere in the country offers unlimited calling in-country, unlimited text (for many, in-country, for Virgin Mobile it's to anywhere in the world), 2GB+ of data, etc. About $65-70 (say $60-65USD). Oh, wait, they're in the US too.
My understanding is that U.S. carrier rates are lower... but yours still ding you for... text messages? Wow, they've been free here for years. And we're talking places with a population of 7k here. Hell, they're available in the town about 1h away that has a population of 700.

Also free in the parts of Asia I've been to (worldwide text, often enough). Not 100% sure about Europe in general but I believe those are free as well based on people I know in various areas. My German is fairly rusty but I'm pretty sure that Frei-SMS und Frei-MMS follows that.

New Zealand... Texts included (as well as to Aus)
Australia... SMS unlimited in-country

So, by 99% of the the world... I'm guessing you mean with your carrier in USA? Who is being myopic?

The parent AC is mostly incorrect. The major telecoms only emphasise post-paid plans, but do have pre-paid available without the need to purchase a phone. They don't want to sell them to you however, and will only tell you about pre-paid if you visit their website or ask them specifically.

In Canada there a dozen or so MVNO's, most of whom operate on a pre-paid model in addition to the 'big three' incumbent companies. Each of the 'big three' providers (Rogers, Bell, Telus) owns one or two MVNO's. Rogers has Fido and Chatr, Bell has Virgin and Telus has Koodo. There are also several highly regional carriers (SaskTel, MTS, Lynx, TBayTel, ICE Wireless, etc.) that offer services where the 'Big 3' do not operate (Northern Quebec, Northwest Territories, Northern Ontario, etc.).

All that being said, there is only one major GSM network, the Rogers/Fido network. Thus, (until 2008/2009) only Rogers/Fido were offering pre-paid plans you could use with a GSM phone. Telus and Bell were CDMA. In the last few years Telus and Bell have built their own HSPA+ network. Now that they have a network that takes SIM cards, all three of the major players are offering inexpensive pre-paid SIM cards, with fairly expensive per-minute rates (40c/minute, unless you get a pre-paid 'plan'. Some of the plans are even 'free' if you top up frequently enough).

Further muddying the waters is the fact that most of the MVNOs don't specialise in pre-paid 'long distance' rates or pre-paid 'local' rates. Part of this is because of foreign ownership restrictions. These have been recently eased, but are still tighter than most other countries. Canada is also extremely large, with a small population. Canada is the size of Europe, with 10x fewer people. England, is approximately the same size as Southern Ontario (130,000km^2), but England has 50,000,000 people and Southern Ontario has 12,000,000. Let us not forget that a large part is because the owners of the networks don't want to give anyone a better deal than they give their own customers, at least not appreciably.

All that being said, the 'big three' all offer prepaid SIMs for $10-$20 dollars, so do most of their sub brands. The MVNOs Petro-Canada Mobility and 7-11 'Speak out' wireless are reasonably easy to find and offer prepaid services depending on where you are visiting.

Rogers Wireless - http://www.rogers.com/web/content/wireless-products/plans#,Tabset1--4
Telus Mobility - http://www.telusmobility.com/en/ON/prepaid/rate-plans.shtml
Bell Mobility - http://www.bell.ca/Mobility/Cell_phone_plans/Prepaid_plans

Big three 'sub brands' (frequently with regional restrictions ie: major cities):
Virgin Mobile - Bell Mobility - http://www.virginmobile.ca/en/plans/prepaid-talktext-plans.html?itcid=NAV:58
Koodo - Telus Mobility - http://koodomobile.com/en/on/plansandboosters.shtml
Fido - Rogers Wireless - http://www.fido.ca/web/page/portal/Fido/PrepaidPlans?forwardTo=prepaidPlans
Chatr - Rogers Wireless - http://www.chatrwireless.com/web/chatr.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PlanBrowse

Regional Operators:
Sasktel - http://www.sasktel.com/personal/mobility/prepaid/index.html
MTS - http://www.mts.ca/mts/personal/wireless/mts+prepaid+wireless ... etc.

Independent MVNOs:
Petro Canada Mobility - (Rogers Network) -

I'm not surprised security isn't strong - given the Virgin Media (ISP) account puts a 10 character limit on your password. Seriously. 10 is woefully short as a maximum.

You think that's sad? Go to their mobile phone account site. You know how you log in? Enter your phone number (public information), followed by a FOUR DIGIT PIN . Yes, I used bold, italic, and underlined for that. The ONLY thing standing between you and someone with your phone number being an asshole is, at most, 10,000 possible numbers. Surely no one could brute force 10,000 numbers!!!!

Think you have it bad in the States? Canadian providers are even worse (and our coverage sucks). Check it out. $51.20/mb. PER MEGABYTE

Also relevant: The Map.

I forgot to give a url. Good thing I looked it up because the details are somewhat different than I remembered. Here's the link:

http://www.virginmobile.ca/en/hot-offers/offer-tablet-50.html

It's not exactly prepaid, but more of a non-contract, month-to-month. So I'm not sure how well they can accommodate a non-canadian billing address, but worth talking to them about I think. They will ship the SIM to you, but I'm not sure how you'd go about activating it while still in the US.

At the end of your contract, do like I am doing right now:

go for this: $10/mo 100 min and you still get Voicemail, Call Display, etc

http://www.virginmobile.ca/vmc/en/rates/rate-plans-prepaid-by-the-month.do?lang=en

Check out Virgin Mobile. We just compared a lot of cell phone plans (out in Alberta) and they stood out as just being simple and not hiding everything. And there's no contract to sign. I think they're worth checking out.