Some key developments in the history of mobile communications have been a result of geopolitics – particularly the USA failing to achieve the leadership it has enjoyed in most areas of technology since World War II. There were tensions in the 1980s and 1990s because 2G was driven by France-based European standards group ETSI (GSM once stood for Groupe Spécial Mobile) and monetized by vendors from France, Germany, Finland and Sweden – even though so much foundational work had been done by Motorola in the USA. Part of Qualcomm’s success came from support for an American alternative in CDMA. Recently, these relatively healthy hi-tech rivalries have become intertwined with bigger geopolitical tensions between the USA and China, whose flagship vendor…