What are the two different approaches In regulation regarding mobile phone systems In Europe and the US?

The classical European approach was based on standardisation and regulation

before any products were available. The EU governments founded ETSI to

harmonize all national regulations. ETSI created the standards, all countries had to

follow. In the US companies develop systems and try to standardize them or the

market forces decide upon success. The FCC, e.g., only regulates the fairness

among different systems but does not stipulate a certain system. The effects of the

two different approaches are different. Many "governmental" standards in Europe

failed completely, e.g., HIPERLAN 1, some succeeded only in Europe, e.g., ISDN,

and however, some soon became a worldwide success story, e.g., GSM. For most

systems the US approach worked better, first some initial products, then standards.

One good example is the wireless LAN family 802.11, a good counter example is the

mobile phone market: several different, incompatible systems try to succeed, many

features, well established in Europe since many years, are not even known in the US

(free roaming, MMS, GPRS roaming, no charges for being called etc.).