While Americans look to cable modems and DSL to fulfill their broadband fantasies, Europeans want bandwidth for their mobile phones. The Continent's major telecom players have spent the last few years wandering in a financial desert, searching for an elusive oasis they are convinced will revive them.
That oasis is the wireless Internet, specifically in the form of the multimedia and much-anticipated 3G, or third-generation, mobile phones.
The persistence is understandable, not least because it's impossible to overstate the importance of wireless technology in Europe. At the start of this year, 63 percent of European Union citizens had a mobile phone, more than twice the percentage who had home Internet access. In some countries - if you exclude, say, infants and prisoners - mobile penetration is more than 100 percent.
Like so many Net fantasies before it, 3G promises to run your life more smoothly than ever before, and without wires. Here's how Nokia (NOK)'s Web site describes it: "3G is videoconferencing in a taxi. 3G is watching clips from your favorite soap in the train; 3G is sending images straight from the field to headquarters for analysis; 3G is sharing your Moroccan vacation with your friend - from Morocco."
It's also serious money. Mobile telecommunications in the EU is a $200 billion industry with a growth rate of 12.5 percent a year. Europe's various operators spent a staggering $130 billion last year on licenses to offer 3G services and will likely spend as much this year to build out their networks.
But the 3G oasis as it currently is envisioned looks like a mirage. Financial analysts doubt the business proposition, engineers question the technology and consumers emit devilishly mixed signals. Still, the telecoms continue to trudge through. There is no turning back - at this point, they have too much invested in 3G.
In the near future, the wireless Internet may play as important a role in our lives as the PC version does now. But to get there, the wireless industry needs to disavow itself of some pretty overblown myths. They are:
