Anyone who has been to an auction knows how it hap-pens. The object, seen from afar, looks delectable. The temptation to outbid the next chap is irresistible. Then the hammer falls. You find that you got carried away, the object was not what you wanted, and you can't really afford it. The inclination is to blame the auctioneer, not your own bad judgment. That, roughly, is what Europe's telephone companies are doing. Finding that they have agreed to pay Europe's governments some $125 billion for licences to operate third-generation (3g) mobile-telephone networks, some have begun to wriggle. Governments should keep their nerve.
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