How young is too young?

For a cell phone or more like a smart phone in today's world?  The stepson is in 6th grade.  One day while he was with us, he asked to us the hubster's phone to call a friend... a girl friend, not girlfriend, but girl friend. Anyway, once, this friend had his number, the hubster's phone started to blow up.  Once Friend A got the number, she passed on to her many friends.  It was out of control.  Of course, the hubster could not have been prouder.

Anyway, the hubster wants to get the stepson a phone for Christmas.  He is 11.  Is that too young or am I just an old fart?  I have no problems with getting a "dumb" phone, but the hubster is concerned about the cool factor.  WTF?!?!  Anyway, did you know it costs $89 for a regular brick cell phone with talk and text capability only?  On the other hand, you can get an iPhone 4 for one penny.  These are both with 2 year contracts.  Yes, you have to get at minimum a $20 data plan with any smart phone.

I think we're getting ahead of ourselves by giving him a smart phone for a few reasons:

1. He's not responsible enough to monitor his data usage.  3 Mbs is not a lot.  When you tell him, he can play on the computer for an hour, he's never off when the hours is over.  Overage charges for data is a minimum of $20
2. Other people will use it or take it.  I fear he'll show up with someone else's phone with sim cards switched out or something
3. Is there parental control for these types of things?  Will he be able to browse anything on the internet?

I think these are legitimate concerns.  The hunbster and I need to take care of these issues before we proceed.  There's only 5 days until Christmas.  That doesn't leave us a lot of time.