Hello!
And welcome to our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCR to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
So DoCoMo said it is going to start building a “Super 3G” network, and is right now accepting submissions from vendors to supply it with “Super 3G” handsets and base stations. DoCoMo said “Super 3G” enables downlink speeds of more than 100 Mbps and uplink speeds of more than 50 Mbps, along with low latency and better spectrum efficiency. The carrier said it expects to “complete the technology” by the end of 2009. I’m assuming “complete the technology” means that it will have a real, live “Super 3G” network up and running for regular people in roughly three-and-a-half years.
I, for one, can’t wait.
I have a lot to write about DoCoMo’s announcement, but first let me just say: I love DoCoMo’s name. Mainly because it’s so freaking hard to type. Try it: DoCoMo. That’s three times you have to hit the shift key for six letters.
Thus, from this point on I will be known as MiKeDaNo. If you do not refer to me as MiKeDaNo (now I’m just copy-and-pasting because MiKeDaNo is even harder to type than DoCoMo) I will become so violently, choke-on-bile angry that I will call your mother and tell her lies about you. MiKeDaNo hates DoComo!
Anyway, where was I? Oh right. MiKeDaNo. The point is that the phrase “Super 3G” is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my whole life. Not even our beloved and fearless leader President Bush can make up a phrase as brainless and noodle-headed as “Super 3G.” And he’s the guy who actually used the word “misunderestimated.”
Thankfully, doCOMO in its press release explains to us that the 3GPP, wordsmiths that they are, are standardizing “Super 3G” under the name “Long Term Evolution” (LTE for short).
Well, that’s a relief. That’s just what this industry needs: more acronyms. Hallelujah, our problems are solved, we’ve got LTE instead of “Super 3G.”
My question is, if the 3GPP (another SPECTACULAR acronym, by the way) is calling it LTE, why is DocOMo calling it “Super 3G?” Who sits down to write a press release entitled, “NTT DoCoMo to Request Proposals for Super 3G Equipment?” Doesn’t your internal Stupid Alarm go off and cause you to go into a tongue-biting epileptic fit if you write the phrase “Super 3G” without meaning it as a joke?
And not only that, dOCOmo says “Super 3G” supports speeds of 100 Mbps on the downlink and more than 50 Mbps on the uplink. That’s, like, 1 kazillion times the speeds regular 3G network technology supports. That doesn’t sound like “Super 3G” to me, that sounds like freaking 5G. Or 10G. Or InfinityG. If you’re going to call it something as beef-witted as “Super 3G,” why not just go the extra step and call it “Super Uper Duper 3G With A Hint of Freaky Deaky?” (SUD3GWAHFD for short.)
Man, I could probably go on about that forever. So why not? “Super 3G” must sound really, really cool in Japanese because in English it sounds like one of those ridiculous rapper names like P. Diddy or Chingy or Supa Blingz.
Now, on to my real point: The wireless industry has too many acronyms. EV-DO, RTT, AGPS, AMPS, ANI, API, ARPU, BREW, BSC, BTS, BTA, CDMA, CDPD, CLEC, CPE, DSP, EDGE, ESMR, FDD, GMSC, GPRS, GPS, GSM, HLR, HSDPA, HSUPA, iDEN, ILEC, IMS, IP, J2ME, LAN, LEC, MIMO, MMDS, MMS, MOU, MSC, MVNO, NFC, OS, OTA, PCS, PHS, POTS, PSAP, PSTN, PTT, RBOC, RF, RFID, RNC, SIM, SIP, SMR, SMS, TDD, TDMA, TD-SCDMA, UMA, UMTS, UWB, VLR, VoIP, WAN, WAP, W-CDMA, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, WLAN, WLL, WML. And that’s just the beginning. (Whoever can e-mail me with the correct definitions for all these acronyms gets a prize.)
(Update: Astute reader David wins the prize! Click here to see his submission. David, I think I speak for everyone when I say: Dude, does your boss know about this?)
Remember when you first started in the wireless industry and you had to have a crash course in wireless acronyms? A co-worker probably sat you down and told you the bad news: You’ll spend months learning this crap.
And you have to, because that’s the badge of honor that all wireless veterans wear. You have to know the secret handshake and the code words to get into the club.
“You don’t know what DVB-H is? Oh … How long have you worked in the industry? Are you even supposed to be here?”
The scary thing is that the wireless industry has let its obsession with acronyms spill over into the mass market. Everyone take a look at their Verizon Wireless phone. See that little “1X” at the top? And, if you’re one of the lucky ones, you might also see the little “EV” next to it? Now, don’t you feel special because you know what those nonsensical letters and numbers mean?
So here’s my suggestion: If you can, just call it what it is. It’s not DVB-H, it’s mobile TV. It’s not PTT, it’s walkie-talkie. And it’s not “Super 3G,” it’s … well … something else. That’s not as dumb.
PS: RCR stands for Radio Communications Report. Didn’t you know that?
OK! Enough of that. Thanks for checking out this Worst of the Week column. Wanna check out other Worst of the Week entries? Click here for past columns. And now, some extras:
–Texas Instruments is callings its new ultra-low-cost chip “LoCosto.” This is hilarious. Congrats to you silicon-slinging hepcats over at TI for coming up with a name that even El Cheapo Bandito likes. Gracias.
–CTIA and its friends came out with a new association, the “USF by the Numbers Coalition,” to promote a “numbers-based” reform to the universal service fund. Can’t someone just take a blow torch to this issue so I don’t have to care about it anymore? USF makes me cry myself to sleep at night.
–Dotmobi is extending its initial registration period for wireless Internet addresses. Let’s hope that this registration period just lasts forever, because I can guarantee that creating a “.mobi” suffix for wireless Internet sites is going to make the whole thing even more complicated than it is now. And it’s already pretty complicated.
–Verizon Wireless is now selling a 3.2 megapixel camera phone. That’s as many megapixels as in my regular digital camera. Can’t we just quit with the megapixel mega-arms race before someone gets megahurt? My pixels already hurt.
–And finally, I have received numerous complaints about the Worst of the Week a few weeks ago called “Worst of the Week: Military-issue Cell Phones.” Most of the complaints were that the column was not actually about military-issue cell phones. So please note: That column is not actually about military-issue cell phones. Thank you for your attention.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at mdano@crain.com.
