The biggest ever gamble on the introduction of a new technology; an attempt to maintain growth in a maturing industry; or an industrial-policy fiasco? The introduction of "third-generation" (3G) mobile-phone networks around the world is all these things and more. In 2000, at the height of the dotcom boom, mobile operators around the world, but mainly in Europe, paid a total of EUD109 billion (then $125 billion) for licences to build and operate 3G networks, which offer higher performance and more capacity than existing second-generation (2G) networks. In part, the mobilespperators were victims of their own hype.
展开▼
