I don't have any insider knowledge, but I thought that the US rapidly expanded the analog cellular network while digital was still under development.
Europe (and everywhere else) lagged behind a bit, and when they actually ramped up deployment, GSM had been created. However, it was years before it arrived here.
We also had the issue of competing digital standards in the US: CDMA and TDMA. However, the only advantage I could see in TDMA is that it could coexist with the analog cell network.
Is that what delayed our digital transition: someone's insistence on backward-compatibility?
Yes, our analog (AMPS) network did expand rapidly and so did the fraud. The public wasn't aware of how insecure analog mobiles were. Hell, for a while gang bangers were cloning pagers, as well as analog cell phones. While we were slamming analog sites here as fast as we could, carriers in SE Asia and Europe were installing secure GSM systems a good 8-10 years ahead of the USA. This is absolute fact because I was one of the engineers working in eastern Europe, Israel, Taiwan, and Indonesia on those systems for Nortel.
Europe (and everywhere else) lagged behind a bit, and when they actually ramped up deployment, GSM had been created. However, it was years before it arrived here.
We were installing digital wireless local loop GSM systems in Prague, among other places, in the early 90's. They were ahead of us, not behind.
We also had the issue of competing digital standards in the US: CDMA and TDMA.
This was courtesy of an FCC who could not decide which system to use. If you go back through issues of Telephoney, Cellular Business, Radio Communications Report and other trade rags at that time you will see article after article where the industry was literally begging the FCC to make up it's mind over a format. This is what happens when you let bureaucrats make engineering decisions they don't understand.
However, the only advantage I could see in TDMA is that it could coexist with the analog cell network.
Never heard of D-AMPS? I worked on one TDMA system in the Carolinas in the mid 90's for BellSouth. TDMA was never widely used. It sounded terrible when it loaded up with calls. Like talking through a garden hose. I don't think Bell ever went commercial with it because the audio quality was so poor. Last I heard the equipment was yanked and replaced with CDMA.
Is that what delayed our digital transition: someone's insistence on backward-compatibility?
Rank indecision on the part of the FCC commissioners. Despite numerous industry attempts to educate them it was clear that no one in the FCC really understood what they were looking at. Again, this is what happens when you let willfully uninformed bureaucrats make engineering decisions.