o access Internet-based resources necessary to participate in modern economies. Mobile Carriers Worldwide Government policies play a critical role in mobile services. In addition to direct investments in infrastructure, they have an impact on the amount of competition, avail- ability of spectrum, and access of various competitors to one another's networks and reasonable roaming rates. Roaming rates are the fees carriers are allowed to charge competitors whose customers use their devices outside of the territories of the small providers. Roaming fees are most often those that large carriers charge smaller com- petitors. Prohibitively high roaming fees impact mobile rates and the ability of small carriers to operate profitably. In countries such as China that have strong central governments, spectrum deci- sions and auctions are often handled at a faster pace. China was able to decide early which LTE technology each of its three carriers would develop and made spectrum available for them. The government also invested directly in fiber-optic backbone net- works needed to support mobile networks. Although carriers are discussing strategies for building 4G networks, for the most part they are still in the process of upgrading networks to third-generation (3G) tech- nologies. In India, carriers are just planning to widen the availability of 3G networks. Russia and China are among the only countries in developing markets that have made spectrum available for LTE networks. Although technology is changing at a faster pace than ever before, the reality is that it still takes years for these changes to be made available on a global basis. THE LARGEST MOBILE CARRIERS WORLDWIDE Across the globe, intense, competitive pressures are keeping prices affordable in most markets. At the same time, operators are searching for new revenue sources and are upgrading their infrastructure to support additional applications, including multiplayer games, audio downloads, and mobile enterprise services. In addition, operators have expanded in