The adage in mobile for a long time has been straightforward: Europe leads, America lags. Customers on either side of the Atlantic seemed to be living on different planets, with those in Germany, Britain, and France talking about blisteringly fast data and the ubiquity of SMS, while their American cousins existed in a world dominated by tallest dwarf discussions—networks besting each other over which of them dropped the fewest calls.
Just because something was true once, however, doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. These days the comparisons between U.S. and Europe are more complicated than ever, and nowhere is it more obvious than in the case of 4G networks.
