&gt; The U.S. was indeed terrible: very restricted competition on phones (two year contracts, models often specific to one carrier, etc.), prohibitively high data rates and extreme barriers to entry for anyone trying to build a phone-based business.<p>For the most part that was also the case in Europe, though countries started cracking down on some of the bullshit fairly early (e.g. the ability to move your number from one carrier to the other and requirements that phones be unlockable after some time). I don&#x27;t know about the phone-based business aspect.