It's just that most people don't care enough, or at least they are willing to trade that part of privacy against the advantages of ubiquitous connectivity.
The most shocking thing to me is that this information wasn't recorded because he was specifically targeted, but this information is stored for everyone, for such a long time.
The cell companies need data on crowd movements[1] to best allocate network resources, to provide a better service. This collective data has to come from a collection of individual datum. Data might need to be collected for all users over a long time frame (years) to correctly identify (for example) how much additional infrastructure is needed near stadiums in football season, how the profile of commuters is changing and what new suburbs are being inhabited.
If we want a stable and reliable cell network, we have to allow the cell companies best plan for our usage.
It's also important to set priorities. I'd rather have more solid privacy protection than up-to-micromanagement optimal planning of capacity. Western Europe has extremely good cell coverage, so I don't think this is much of an issue.
Having worked as an employee (not contractor) for 3 of the 4 major Irish cell companies I know that data like this is heavily protected internally (I never saw any subscriber location information). There are data protection laws already in place to stop this information leaking.
Why do you want to limit the information a company can keep on its users? Are you a fan of this new EU cookie directive?