Welcome to Acronym Hell

5:50 PM -- One of my least favorite aspects of the 3GSM Show was the fungi-like spread of yet another damn acronym.

This time it's HSUPA, which stands for high speed uplink packet access. This is the other side of the coin to HSDPA -- you guessed it -- high speed downlink packet access.

It's getting pretty silly when both sides of what is essentially a stepping-stone upgrade for third generation GSM networks each get their own acronym. That seems to be about where we're at in the mobile industry today though.

And I have to say I can be as guilty of using jargon and acronyms as anyone else as well. Just last week, our bearded Copy Chief-cum-Spirits Adviser called me out for using the words "Wave Two" in a WiMax story.

The scary thing is, I was using industry jargon in a bid to avoid more acronyms. To be considered as Wave 2 products, Mobile WiMax chipsets have to support stuff like MIMO and "beamforming" and... Well, you can see where this is headed.

It's hard not to feel a bit like less hip, more tech version of William S. Burroughs when you sit down to write a piece sometimes.Now stand back as I release my acronym horde...

— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Unstrung