GSM’s Success Factors Friedhelm Hillebrand 1 23.1 Acceptance in Europe, the First Step The first big step was the success and acceptance in all European countries. GSM was certainly the right product at the right time. There were countries like France and Germany who needed capacity in the early 1990s. Other countries like the UK, Italy, the Nordic countries had high capacity analogue systems. They were attracted by superior GSM features like small hand-held terminals as well as superior services