EDGE/EGPRS and 2.5G/3G ... Haven't we been through this before ...
c2po,
<< The reason I asked is because Nokia originally said the 6200 was a 3G EDGE phone. Nokia now says the 6200 is a 2.5G EGPRS phone. >>
EDGE = EGPRS Period the End
EDGE = EGPRS is 3G in the Americas, land of hypertunitty, and you'll never hear 3Gamericas referring to it as 2.5G.
EDGE - EGPRS is 2.5G in Europe, MEA, and Asia and you'll seldom see it refereed to as 3G there, although occasionally you will see references there to "In-band 3G" when a mixed audience is present.
Its like CDMA2000 1xRTT.
1xRTT is 2.5G in Korea and it will never be referred to as 3G regardless of how many letters IMJ writes to the Koreans asking them to hype it as 3G, and it is NOT a spectrum matter as Irwin and son Jeff try to tell us, because the Koreans refer to 1xEV-DV as 3G and they have implemented it in existing cellular and PCS spectrum and will implement 3GSM WCDMA in IMT-2000 core spectrum.
1xRTT is 2.5G in China.
1xRTT is 3G in Japan. Go figger.
In the Americas, land of hypertunitty, 1xRTT is of course 3G and don't let IMJ catch you calling it 2.5G or even 2.75G.
EDGE = EGPRS (like CDMA2000 Release A but not Release 0) is an official ITU IMT-2000 3G Standard and has been unofficially since November 1999 and officially since ever May 2000 (just like Release A). TDMA-EDGE was originally standardized as UWC-136 for IMT-SC aka IMT-SC Single Carrier. Subsequently GSM-EDGE was standardized under the IMT-SC umbrella at the same time and in the same way that 1xEV-DV became an IMT-2000 standard under the IMT-MC umbrella. It was in October. 2001 I think, but maybe 2000.
Now while GSM EDGE = EGPRS is an official ITU 3G standard (originally standardized by ETSI in GSM 'R98') it is a second generation standard and is part of GSM Phase 2+.
GSM EDGE = EGPRS is part of the GSM/EDGE standard maintained by 3GPP and that shouldn't be confused with the 3GSM standard that 3GPP maintains although the two standards evolve in parallel and are closely coordinated to insure forward and backward compatability between the two.
Phase one of GSM EDGE = EGPRS being implemented now (in advanced trial phases of implementation on the network side) here in the US is compliant to 3GPP GSM/EDGE 'R99'. although Rel-4 is not only completed (functionally frozen) but reasonably mature and Rel-5 is completed (functionally frozen) and well advanced and Rel-6 is a work in progress.
Confusing isn't it?
Hype is confusing.
Blame it on the UWCC and CDG/Qualcomm in this case. Wireless Week, published by Cahners InStat, wrote a great article on this and coined the phrase 2.75G. I posted the article elsewhere on SI way back when. I can't, however, find it in my archives or the Wireless Week archives and I've made several attempts to search for it. someday i'll stumble across it.
- Eric - |
