[thatsenough]

Telecommunications engineers produce the worst naming schemes and acronyms of anyone, anywhere.

Any cellular document is a mishmash of alphabet soup: UTRAN, UMTS, PS-CN, SGSN, RNC, RNS, eNodeB, EPC, MME, S-GW, X2-AP, S1, GTP-U, HSDPA, HSUPA, RRC, PDCP, RLC, OFDM, MU-MIMO, and on and on ad infinitum.

You'd think the marketing people would at least get the public-facing stuff right, but they've likely been tainted by association with the engineers.

[jeroenhd]

They have though. They added 2G/3G/4G/5G (though some American ISPs like to call stuff the next G even if it doesn't qualify).

There's also WiFi and now WiFi 1-6 (the F is just dumb) and Bluetooth 1-5.

OFDM and MU-MIMO aren't user facing technologies, they can be applied in any wireless standard really. Just because router manufacturers put stickers on their boxes doesn't make the technology customer facing.

Same with the protocols underlying the cellular industry. For all the engineers care, the people just call it by their Gs and be done with it. Cell phone manufacturers tried to advertise with specific technology names because "3G but slightly faster" doesn't sell well. Then the 4G debacle happened where LTE didn't even qualify to be called 4G at first except due to a technicality and now that LTE Advanced is available, which finally is fast enough to be called 4G according to the specification, people are already starting to call it 5G.

I blame the marketeers for ruining any consumer facing schemes by their drive to have the biggest number the first no matter what. As long as people like that end up naming things, we'll never have concise naming schemes for consumers as all simplification efforts are ruined by trying to grab a quick buck.

[pilsetnieks]

What debacle? As I recall, LTE was the actual 4G tech because, well, it was a new generation after all the 3G ones. The only debacle I remember was that some carriers decided to call HSPA+ 4G for marketing reasons.

[jeroenhd]

Well, according to the original design specification for the 4G name, the standard had to support a certain throughput in rest (I believe it was 1Gbps) and a certain throughput while moving at a certain speed (something like 100mbps at 100km/h). LTE failed to reach the 1gbps threshold but managed to get the high speed while moving so it was basically declared "4G enough" and people just accepted LTE as 4G. This is why the ITU now has definitions for 4G (LTE at the moment it started being marketed as 4G) and "True 4G" (4G technologies that actually pass the requirements for 4G such as LTE advanced, which AT&T now markets as "5G E" because screw consumers I suppose)

[grecy]

I recently worked in Telco, a long time before that I was in Research and Dev for the Military.

Telco has nothing on the military.

We had a database of TLA's[1] that was over 11,000 strong. Also everyone knew your TLA wasn't worth a damn unless it changed every three months or so.

[1] That's a 'Three Letter Acronym' - yes, there is a TLA for TLA.

[nightfly]

> We had a database of TLA's[1] that was over 11,000 strong 26^3 = 17,576

So even back then you were already than halfway though the available space. Assuming they were all unique, which they wouldn't be. :)

[walshemj]

Telecoms is a bit more rigorous when it comes to standards :-)

Back when I worked in that area our standards collection for x.400 /x.500 took up about 1/3 of a full hight cupboard