The more i learn about US telecom, the more i wonder how the hell they managed to invent both the landline and mobile phone. Their infrastructure sounds like a balkanized mess...
First telephone was invented by an Italian (Antonio Meucci).
Probably the best landline system was/is in Germany. The ISDN was a complete digital system beginning from the 80s, having features that are not present in current mobile technologies. Calling was almost instant, probably only matched with VoLTE or SIP in local networks.
Deutsche Telekom tried very hard to adapt most of the ISDN features to SIP.
Not really a fair assessment. The 4 larger mobile providers are spilt between GSM and CDMA in the past CDMA phones wouldn’t work abroad, except maybe China. You would even have to buy a CDMA version of the iPhone. The big 4 just buy up all competitors and usually one tries to buy one of the others.
Geographically the US is much more expansive than the EU and more robust.
I would not compare infrastructure I would compare the regulations. The telcos created the tech and most likely the laws.
Regulation was the key difference. The EU mandated a common wireless standard (GSM) to be in use across all countries. The US let the market decide and ended up building 4-5 largely incompatible semi-nationwide networks.
Thankfully time, technology, and consolidation has now reduced that down to 2 (CDMA/LTE - Verizon, Sprint, GSM/LTE, AT&T, T-Mobile). LTE will eventually consolidate that down to 1.
