Musings
The greatest factor limiting cellular radio development was not technology but spectrum, that great radio real estate space in the sky. Until the FCC assigned enough frequencies to handle large amounts of users there wasn't commercial interest. Who'd build a new, expensive system without enough customers to pay for it? Only when the FCC seemed willing to free up spectrum did the Bell System and Motorola put money and resources into fully investigating cellular. Can anyone think of another constructive invention that was limited chiefly by government regulation, not by the technology itself?
One more thought, since I am rambling. A one lane toll road cannot make as much money as a twenty-four lane toll road if there is constant demand for all those lanes. Compare that to the problem of limited spectrum or number of frequencies before the FCC allotted large blocks to cellular radio. One might argue that technology was still the limiting factor. If one could get 24 voice channels operating on a single frequency then limited spectrum wouldn't be the biggest problem. But technology has to be practical. Could you have a 24 lane toll road in the same space as a single lane? Perhaps. If you stacked each road on top of the other. But such a project would be cost prohibitive and impractical to construct. Again, we have to move away from technology and look at the limited resource that is spectrum.