Will The Real 3G Please Stand Up...

I'm not knocking Om Malik for calling HSDPA "the real 3G" in a post today -- but it did strike me as amusing. It seems that every new cellular wireless standard is being called "real 3G" after the previous "real 3G" fails to deliver. It wasn't that long ago that CDMA carriers were insisting that 1xRTT was "real 3G." There were even a few GSM carriers who tried to convince people that GPRS was "real 3G." After neither proved to be true, then suddenly it was all about how EDGE was "real 3G." Of course, now people say that UMTS and EV-DO are "real 3G," but that's nothing compared to HSDPA which (no, for real, this time) will be "real 3G." Of course, that all means nothing when super 3G (for real!) comes along.

Filed Under: 3g