Gordon Brown killed 3G...
...the day he agreed that an il-thought-through auction in cahoots with LSE would suffice for selling the spectrum for 3G.
£22.5 billion for five pieces of paper is possibly the most successful scam in the history of scams. Of course the mobile operators are equally to blame. No-one wanted to play chicken so up and up went the valuations on the spectrum.
And what did prudent Gordo do with the cash? He paid down the national debt. So the reason that UK mobile bills are so silly, and the cost of 3G bandwidth (which by 2007 should be free flowing at low cost) is even sillier, is because every mobile phone bill is in effect a bill for interest on the national debt.
Just think, if these companies didn't have to cover £4-5bn in licence costs, they could have slashed the cost of mobile internet, which is the biggest thing holding back its development.
The UK is prime territory for developing products and services around the mobile phone, but £22.5 billion in debt has instead stifled development for years to come.
Just one of the many reasons why the UK is a basket case.