hi yvonne! I am about to get my Kindle soon too and have been doing some research myself so here's a few answers to your questions that I think might help
1) net connection - in America, they use AT&T, and when they get shipped here, it's also AT&T. Far as the newspapers have reported, it has been suggested that we are on the "roaming" side of AT&T, much like what you would be experiencing when you bring your mobile phone overseas. This is also the "suggested" reason as to why we are paying an extra USD$2 extra per book for the roaming fees. Further comparisons between networks and so on have suggested that maybe the international roaming partner is 3, but it's just an idea.
2) from whirlpool.net.au - some people have been buying the kindle and their books from way since Kindle first appeared 2 years ago. They worked their way around the restriction by having 2 Amazon accounts - one where they use their local Australian address and credit card, and another where it has no credit card attached to it, an American address and phone number (someone's even used Disneyland's!). then, buying the Amazon gift card/voucher from the CC account to the American account, and voila, you can buy books as American's would and still pay royalties to your favourite authors
The drawback to this is, people have suggested not using the Kindle to direct download for this as the Kindle itself would recognise that it is physically in a different country and therefore would not allow you to view the books that is not available to Australia. However, there seems to be varying reports about that. And, for people who reported that they could direct download their favourite authors on to the Kindle, they appeared to be paying the local price of an additonal USD$1.99.
You will also receive emails from Amazon telling you that they know you are downloading overseas and just kindly reminding you to change your address, but so far nothing seems to have happened from it.
That all said and done, like what others have said before me, whatever books that are available to us is actually quite a good collection too, even if the authors aren't as well known as the ones we like (Kazuo Ishiguro and Stieg Larsson comes to mind). I am already listing down the books that I would be reading - thanks in part to librarything.com and all the members' introductions - that I wouldn't be reading otherwise thanks to this restrictions. I see it as a broadening of my horizons.
Also, don't forget, you can also convert your current pdf files (school/work/stuff/new authors) to the kindle format (.mobi) that you can also add to your kindle too! I am using
mobipocket as that was the one people suggested to me, and am currently lining up my collection on Kindle for PC ready to be downloaded when my Kindle arrive!
Do remember that we have limited functions on the kindle as some of them are just "on trial" at the moment, such as the web browser, so they don't actually work here. it sounds like a lot of no-nos, and what it can't do, but really, just being able to read books on it, and downloading it pretty much instantly, already sounds awesome
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