Globalisation GSM is now in more countries than McDonalds. Mike Short, Chairman MoU Association 1995±1996 GSM was initially designed as a pan-European mobile communication network, but shortly after the successful start of the ®rst commercial networks in Europe, GSM systems were also deployed on other continents (e.g. in Australia, Hong Kong, and New Zealand). In the meantime, 373 networks in 142 countries are in operation (see Section 1.3). In addition to GSM networks that operate in the 900 MH