BRITAIN HAS long been a pioneer in telecoms. In 1837 it built the world’s first commercial telegraph; the first transatlantic call was placed from London in 1927; in 1992 a British programmer sent the world’s first text message to a mobile phone. Today it lags rather than leads. According to figures provided to The Economist by Open Signal, a research firm, Britain ranks 46th for download speeds out of the 56 developed and developing countries for which there are data (see chart). That makes it the worst mobile service in the rich world.