[0xFFC]

This might be a dumb question, but why is it way lighter than the US or anywhere in the world? Why do they need to install so many towers? Is there anything specific about Europe's geography that requires European countries to install that much tower?

[bigiain]

I think technology differences play a factor.

CDMA gets longer range than 3/4G, so it's useable in a sparse network so long as it's not trying to service too many people at the same time. I'm guessing the US launched lots of CDMA infrastructure back when it wasn't considered obsolete by most of the world, and hasn't upgraded it's rural cellular networks.

Australia set down all it's "legacy" CDMA stuff over a decade ago, which makes the large dark patches that cover lots of the continent very under-served.

[BigBalli]

Europe is much more "dense" and many obstacles therefore requiring more towers to cover the same surface area.

[raphaelj]

Population density is significantly higher in Europe than in the US.

[numpad0]

You can serve only so many phones and handle only so much bandwidth from a single cell tower. So they reduce cell sizes and install more towers to keep devices per cell down.