Mobile Phone mis-move

So I am now officially over the comment thing. The majority of replies asssured me that 1) facebook doesn't seem to log my notes as well as Mel's and 2) most people we know only keep in contact with Mel to be polite and that up to 85% of all our friends prefer me. Which is not that important when you're in a happy, sharing relationship like we are.
Back to the point. Before leaving the UK (in the very last week in fact), I went through the following thought process. 1) My phone is broken and quite soon I'll need a new one. 2) America is a little retarded for phones and all their phones are either a bit rubbish or iPhone/Blackberry expensive. 3) I can get a pretty cool Sony Walkman phone that has a radio/camera/mp3 player/internet access for 60 quid, so I'll do that and take it with me.
It is a great phone and let's me take pictures like this. I say photos like this because this photo was taken on our camera. But my phone takes photos like this (the astute amongst you may remark 'only if you point it at stuff like that'). But here is the rub, and where I was right to doubt america's mobile phone pedigree (their cell phone pedigree is just as bad), but wrong in my assumptions. My phone won't connect to the internet. It can, it could, it should, but it won't. I went to the AT&T store (whose GoPhone pay-as-you-go package I have) and they looked at my phone said they didn't do that phone, so maybe I should try looking at the internet. I avoided amusing but ultimately pointless replies to the effect that that was why I was there. I did go to the internet (remembering that other internet access was available) and the much-more-helpful Sony website, downloaded the correct settings for AT&T US internet, and ... still no connection. It pretends to connect, but no information flows forth. I went back to the store and asked them why this would be. They didn't know. I offered them the potential explanation that maybe the GoPhone package doesn't allow internet access and they agreed. Hmph.
I then went to the Verizon Wireless store. Their pay-as-you-go package also fails to give internet access. I am still looking...
I can see that this isn't a big issue. I lived fine before I realised that my old phone connnected to the internet (in the garden of the Pen & Wig, Cardiff, on teh wrong side of some beers), and I can again. BUT I like being able to check my email even more frequently and check football scores anywhere. Which is why I want to find someone to hook my phone up to the internet without getting a $50-a-month contract. Because for that money, I could do all sorts of things. Some of them legal in the state of Maryland.