ne's screen and keyboard area is too small to be a good PDA, let alone computer. A more straightforward approach would be to simply allow the user's laptop computer or PDA to connect to the mobile telephone, which would func- tion as a wireless modem. Or perhaps a dedicated wireless modem could be used. Much less sexy, perhaps, but more practical. Eventually such products did come to market, after the first 3G networks were built with little public response. The cognitive dissonance between futuristic devices and practical accessories was just one of the unresolved issues impeding third-generation wire- less networks. European PTTs Had Recently Been Privatized The European mobile operators were for the most part private corporations. Indeed by 1998, when 3G was taking off, most of Europe's wireline telephone networks had already been privatized. Until a few years earlier, the bulk of the telephone networks had been operated as monopolies by the PTTs. Often, the government turned it into a publicly held corporation and sold shares, keeping some for itself. And competition was just starting to creep in to most of Europe; although the United Kingdom had had some competition since the early 1980s, it was not until the boom years that the bulk of the European Union saw com- petitive networks develop. So management of these corporations was somewhat new to the idea of a free market. They had never really worried too much about money before. Mobile telephony was different from the wireline business. It was almost never a monopoly. The mobile affiliate of former PTT British Telecom (subse- quently spun off as O2), for instance, faced strong competition from carriers that included Orange (owned by France Telecom), T-Mobile (Deutsche Tele- kom), and Vodafone. When the 3G license auction came along, nobody wanted to be the one left standing after all the chairs were full. Losing by Winning: Wireless License Auctions Bubble-Era Timing Led to Spectacular Bids The 3G auctions began in 2000. Spain and Finland had awarded licens