And then there is bandwidth consumption. So what if US text messaging isn't on par with Europe; Americans are now paying for TV feeds from Sprint and are hungry for more frames per second. Qualcomm is priming the multimedia content market with its own nationwide OFDM rollout. And then there is Wi-Fi, which is wildly popular in the US and is driving carriers to create "Wi-Fi-like" wireless experiences.

As for Europe, their early analog cellular systems were a nightmare, and generally prohibited cross border travel due to non-compatibility between networks and no settlements mechanism. They got together and hammered out the GSM open network standard. All networks would be built to the same spec and carriers would compete based on feature set (SMS, handset functionality, etc.)and coverage. When the US finally licensed 2 GHz PCS here in the US, the first commercial network to go live was APC's GSM system in Washington, D.C. Omnipoint's followed shortley thereafter with a GSM system in New York City. Omnipoint eventually merged with Voicestream which eventually was bought by T-Mobil. APC quickly sold out to Sprint Spectrum which eventually transitioned to a CDMA network. Key point: APC and Omnipoint exploited GSM open standard because it was the only "cheap" system ready to go off the shelf. CDMA, a standard championed by Qualcomm, had yet to prove itself. it has since done so.

One aspect perhaps lost int he article in the geographic licensing of PCS. US digital cellular licenses were awarded via an auction methodology. This raised the cost of building a network tremendously. In addition, although the geographic scope of the larger licenses MTAs and BTAs) were much bigger than the MSA of analog cellular licenses, they were not national in scope nor even encompassing of major megalopolis' such as the New York-D.C. corridor. Different companies owned different licenses. That, in addition to the different technology choices confronting the license holders, slowed down the buildout.

Last year I worked on a contract where we digitized pumping stations. When the station has a pump down or has a flood condition it calls via cell phone and lets the county maintenance dept know what the problem is. I forget but I think we had like 4 different conditions it would call for.

All that is sucked into a computer and gets logged into a database then text messages are sent to people in the field. Stunning technology that cost next to nothing. (in municipality terms)

That's all that needs to be said on the coverage question.

I mean come on! Its the PA Tunrpike, the most traveled route from Pittsburgh to Philly! Its not like the country roads leading to my hometown.

I worked for Motorola for a couple of years, in the cellular infrastructure group, and have a bit of insight (though not much). Europe, as with the rest of the world, imposed an early digital cellular standard and the U.S. did not, preferring to let the standards compete and let the better one win.

The outcome -- which approach is best -- still isn't clear to me. Europe and Asia seem to be moving right along with their cellular networks, while things tend to drag a bit here. We still have multiple technologies at work, but seem to be doing OK -- we're not horribly behind. If a better technology comes along, we'll be in a better position to adapt to it than the rest of the world. The price we pay for that flexibility is a lack of uniformity.

On the whole, I'm not all that troubled. Moreso than other countries, we tend to have more practical tastes when it comes to gadgetry (there was a SF Chronicle article on this the other day) and don't stay on the bleeding edge, except where business is concerned. That seems about right to me.