It has become commonplace to contrast the speed and alacrity with which the United States has embraced the Internet with Europe's relative conservatism and to marvel at the Americans' appetite for innovation. Europe, it seems, is doomed to play catch-up.

Or is it? No one disputes the leading role that the United States has taken thus far in the Internet revolution. But mobile commerce—that is, electronic commerce conducted on mobile phones—is the next big Internet development. And in mobile communications, the United States trails behind Europe.

There is little doubt that Europe has been laboring under two disadvantages in the Internet world. The first is metered calls. The cost of local calls is included in the flat monthly fee paid by Americans to their telecom suppliers, which means that they get to surf the Internet for no additional phone charge. Europeans, however, pay for local calls by the minute. Even before Americans went on-line, they spent on average about three times longer chatting on the phone than Europeans did.

Europe's second disadvantage has been lack of competition in the telecommunications industry. Recent research to explain the different penetration rates of the Internet in different countries concluded that it is...