Vodafone's search for the G-spot

摘要

The global telecoms boom that reached its zenith almost two decades ago was made for satire. It united two of the most intoxicating technologies of all time, the mobile phone and the internet. It generated the biggest wave of value-destroyi ng takeovers the world had ever seen. Its apex, the £22.5bn ($35bn) sale of third-generation (3G) wireless spectrum in Britain in 2000, was such a humdinger that the boffins who devised it described it, with a Py-thonesque flourish, as the most successful auction since the Praetorian Guard sold the Roman Empire to Didius Julianus in 193ad.