Acronym challenged readers should skip directly to the "Untangling the technological tongue twisters" at the bottom of the page, before confusing themselves any further. Meanwhile those brave enough to take the industry on, on it own terms, should read on regardless.
Some in the telco industry even argue that the network providers have dug themselves into a marketing hole, as confused consumers wonder exactly how the latest GPRS WAP phone technology is going to make any different to their lives.
"Can you image if direct-dial international calls had been sold to us as, 34kb undersea cable delivered circuit switched voice telephony services," says Rosemary Sinclair, managing director of The Australian Telecommunications Users Group. "The service providers are forgetting that people really don't care what it is called in the lab, as long as they understand how it will effect them."
Sinclair believes the industry would be better off forgetting the acronyms and simply selling the richer communications experience.
However, the imperative to specify the benefits of the different standards has an historical basis in the Australian market, harking back to the switch from analogue to digital networks at the end of the nineties.
Analogue phone users were understandably annoyed at having to change their phone numbers before they were good and ready to do so. In explaining the benefits of the digital network service providers were forced to plumb the depths of pros and cons of digital vrs analogue technology.
To add to the confusion Australia installed the infrastructure to support two different but compatible networks. The GSM network inherited from Europe provided good coverage in urban and suburban areas, while CDMA kept regional areas covered.
Gael Derven senior manager for Nortel Networks Australia's Wireless Internet Solutions division explains how they worked to compliment each other.
"CDMA was selected to provide coverage across Australia," Derven said. "But there is a very basic relationship between capacity and coverage, which is fine if there are not very many people using the phones across vast distances."
Much to the consternation of service providers, Australian mobile phone users continued to use their devices in much the same way they used land-lines; to talk to one another.
While text messaging was taking off at breakneck speed in places like the Philippines, it wasn't until mobiles started to filter into the youth market that mobiles became digitally interactive.
Chris Wade, CEO of mobile technology R&D outfit Cambridge Positioning Systems (CPS) observes adolescents around the world got the jump on the elders when it came to using mobile digital messaging.
"Not only are the messages less expensive to send, they are cooler to send," Wade said. "A whole new language has begun to evolve around these messages, and the kids feel that they are a part of that evolution."
Wade also sees youth as a significant force in the not too distant 3G market.
"Kids are totally comfortable with using their phone as a terminal, they have been groomed for it since they picked up their first GameBoy," Wade said.
As SMS was starting to take off in the youth market serious adults were gradually being brought around to the idea of using their mobile to search the Web.
Companies such as Ericsson bought out their WAP enable phones, and end users were encouraged to log on and access everything from movie times to horoscopes. Working in conjunction with content providers, network vendors made sure there was at least a minimum of information available to mobile Web surfers if they actually managed to connect. Everything from horoscopes to movie sessions was posted on special sites using WML, a slimline Internet language specially developed for hand-held devices.
However there was still a problem, as anyone who tried to log on via their WAP phones in the early days no doubt realises.
Peter Walker, general manager for mobility with Siemens Information and Communication compares WAP connections to standard dial up connections.
"It is fine if you are sitting still, but if people were moving about, as they tend to do with mobiles, poor coverage would cut the connection and interrupt the download," Walker said.
However frustrated WAP users should not despair quite yet, because the timely arrival of packet switching 2.5G services is about to change all that.
