3G and HSDPA marketed the same?? why??

[Jonny Two Shoes]

Just out of curiosity...why do we in general tend to talk about "3G" cards when in fact it is HSDPA?. Do I have the wrong impression or does Vodacom and MTN market these products as if they are the same technology?

It just seems to me those who don't know any better would not realize 3G and HSDPA are different if they walked into a vodac shop. I see this everyday when our users talk about "3G" cards at my work....they have no perception of the speeds involved or the difference....most of them never even heard of HSDPA.

3G = 384KBit (Or thereabouts)
HSDPA = 1.8MBit (And I heard somewhere it's regarded as 3.5G or something)

I know it's not a major issue as what you buy today supports both in most cases. Once again just curious...I may have the wrong impression.

 

[vodacom3g]

Just out of curiosity...why do we in general tend to talk about "3G" cards when in fact it is HSDPA?. Do I have the wrong impression or does Vodacom and MTN market these products as if they are the same technology?

It just seems to me those who don't know any better would not realize 3G and HSDPA are different if they walked into a vodac shop. I see this everyday when our users talk about "3G" cards at my work....they have no perception of the speeds involved or the difference....most of them never even heard of HSDPA.

3G = 384KBit (Or thereabouts)
HSDPA = 1.8MBit (And I heard somewhere it's regarded as 3.5G or something)

I know it's not a major issue as what you buy today supports both in most cases. Once again just curious...I may have the wrong impression.

3G is more a marketing term, standing for the 3rd generation of telephony (1st being analog, 2nd GSM).

The first version of 3G / WCDMA(called 3G-R99, for release 1999) was 384Kb/s. On the forum we often speak of 'vanilla-3G'.

Later more complex encoding schemes gave us HSDPA @ 1.8Mb/s. So now we have 3G-R99 and 3G-HSDPA.

Vodacom made a policy decision to enable all 3G towers with HSDPA. Also, we don't sell 3G-R99 devices anymore. So any datacard you get from Vodacom will be at least HSDPA-1.8Mb/s and if there is 3G coverage, that's what you'll can get as a max.

The next version will be 3G-HSDPA-3.6MB/s and later we'll see HSUPA where the uplink will exceed the current 384Kb/s.

So, in terms of data devices, 3G-R99 is now mostly legacy. Handsets are now also catching up.

The E220 is already 3.6M capable and the Express cards, mostly 7.2M capable.

I, personally, think 'HSDPA' is a clunky term. I'd prefer we speak of 3G-1.8, 3G-3.6 or 3G-7.2. A bit like a BMW 320, 325 and 335. Same range of product, different performance parameters.

 

[Jonny Two Shoes]

Thanks V3G. I agree with that last statement as well where it becomes easier to name. However I also think it is important that the user knows what he or she is actually using. Nevertheless perhaps if they don't know they will probably never know.

 

[ic]

Thanks V3G. I agree with that last statement as well where it becomes easier to name. However I also think it is important that the user knows what he or she is actually using. Nevertheless perhaps if they don't know they will probably never know.

J2S, not sure if you understood all of v3g's post, to clarify, HSDPA is actually an extension of 3G{-R99}, call it an enhanced version of 3G{-R99}, so HSDPA is still based on 3G{-R99} just a newer better faster version of 3G{-R99}.

 

[JK8]

J2S, not sure if you understood all of v3g's post, to clarify, HSDPA is actually an extension of 3G{-R99}, call it an enhanced version of 3G{-R99}, so HSDPA is still based on 3G{-R99} just a newer better faster version of 3G{-R99}.

Yip HSDPA is still 3G, 3rd Generation of Mobiles, 4G will be next!

 

[Jonny Two Shoes]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/09/23/3g_branding_absurd_admits_sprint/

The above link is a little off course but definately shows a concern in branding even with the most subtle of differences. Hence the last statement "Anyone for 3.5G?"

 

[Jonny Two Shoes]

Interestingly even wikipedia redirects you to HSDPA when you search for 3.5G

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They are all third generation tech's yes (3G), however it's the actual performance difference Im trying to get at. Even a product of 14Mbps+ can be considered third generation however there is no comparision whatsoever.