We've got 3 major ones in the Netherlands. There's over a dozen carriers but they all use one of these networks. Not super familiar with the rest of Europe but

We've got 3 major ones in the Netherlands. There's over a dozen carriers but they all use one of these networks. Not super familiar with the rest of Europe but the larger countries have 4 operators as far as I know, like the UK, Germany, Spain, France... but there's also plenty of smaller countries that have four, like say Greece. Sweden afaik has even 5, and the Ukraine iirc has 6. Anyway it probably has to do with density. I was flabbergasted when I studied in Canada and ended up seeing phone bills that were like 3x my own back home where we have only 3 operators. But it's pretty easy to cover the size of the Netherlands cheaply, as for Canada or say the US... different story. (although in Canada regulation also played a big role, it wasn't a very competitive market)