LinuxQuestions.org - Download camera-phone files

I have noticed a disturbing trend with camera-phones. At least with my carrier (Sprint) they claim that the ONLY way to get files from a camera-phone (I have not yet purchased one but would very much like to) to my computer is to sign up for their Sprint PCS Vision service and to email the files to myself.

Pardon my French, but what nazi came up with this brilliant highway-robbery scheme? Maybe I'm off my rocker, but when I see that a phone has a data port, and I know that there are data cables that I can use to plug the phone into my computer via USB, then why would there not be a way to just download the files?

Now, it has come to my attention that this company: http://www.futuredial.com/ , seems to have decided to do just that, however their products are bloated, don't seem to support the option of downloading mpg videos from the phone, only support phones that I have no interest in purchasing (there only seemed to be one phone by Sanyo that was even still in production) and of course the obvious problem: they're Windows only.

So the question arises: What to do if you use Linux? I would imagine that there has to be some way to simply mount the phone as a drive? If so, how? Are the wonderful people at Sprint pulling my chain and it is as simple as plugging in and using like a USB drive? Or has there really been implemented a system so bass-ackwards where a complex program would be necessary to even scratch the surface of solving this problem?

I imagine that I simply do not understand the situation fully and that there very well might be a reason why I am expected to pay extra money to move files from a phone to a computer, it just seems odd considering that I can easily plug my digital camera into my computer and achieve the desired results. Does the inclusion of a phone complicate the matter so much that this is truly necessary? Or am I correct in assuming that this is just another way Sprint would like to grab my balls and swing me around the room yelling, "Who's your daddy?!"

So any ideas? Has this been done? Is there any way to do what I want?