Sure, inventing stuff costs money, but handset manufacturers all benefit from those inventions by being able to charge for them.
As for the history of GSM:
"In 1982, the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) created the Groupe Spécial Mobile (GSM) to develop a standard for a mobile telephone system that could be used across Europe.[6] In 1987, a memorandum of understanding was signed by 13 countries to develop a common cellular telephone system across Europe.[7][8] Finally the system created by SINTEF lead by Torleiv Maseng was selected.[9]"
The rest of that stuff: communications methods and associated bits & pieces should simply not be patentable, especially not if they consist of pieces of software.
By your reasoning every TCP protocol stack component should have been patented because it cost 'billions to develop'.