I agree. The public knows fast downloading or fast surfing when they see it, but I'm not convinced that they care whether it is 2G, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA or WiFi. I think the industry is often too caught up in its own jargon.

I do not have a 3G card for my laptop and although I have had several 3G phones, I have made very little use of 3G. So how can this be? Well, r.harris has put his finger on one of the major problems I have had: pricing. However, for me the even bigger problem is the lack of price transparency. Fair enough, some operators have introduced flat rates, but the transparency problem still remains for the situations in which I would find 3G (and for that matter data services in general) most useful, namely when I roam.

I am still amazed how difficult it is to get straight answers - or in some cases any answer at all - to the question of how much it will cost me to use the data service in each of the 5 countries I visit most frequently.