[tortoise]

And what about mobile telecommunications infrastructures? At least two years behind that of Japan and Europe.

I don't suppose this has anything to do with why Europe is now dumping their much vaunted GSM technology for the vastly superior (and thoroughly American) CDMA technology? The Europeans were so proud of their GSM networks that they really hated admitting that CDMA was better, right up until the point where their GSM networks started to breakdown. Now all the European wireless phone companies are licensing CDMA technology from the American companies. Japan is in the same boat, incidentally.

You must be a glutton for punishment, asserting Euro-chauvinistic mantras without actually checking the facts.

[Jordi]

I recently read that mobile phone penetration just reched 50% in the US: it's quite a little, compared with the 80% in Western Europe. Moreover the gps is the older of the actually 3 working standard in Europe:there are also gprs and,being launched these days in the UK and Italy, the UMTS. An increasing number of locations ,particulary airports got WI-FI (?) services. Most working people got two cellphones, one for working purposes,the other for personal use. It's obvious people in the US are wary of using cellphones freely: 5 different standards,sky-high tariffs for calls between different providers,uncertain covering,and worst of all,fees for the receiver too!

Oh,I'm just a poor man,at my parents home I got just a 256kbps connection for 12.95 € a month. Luckily at my home I got 10Mbps broadband via fiber optics, for 75 € a month ,voice traffic and cable TV included. I recently read that internet conncetion in the US are actually decreasing . After having lost the mobile communication race,are you losing the broadband race too??