That might be an American thing, dunno... In Europe things seem quite clear (or at least they are consistent ;) ) * GSM -> 2G * GPRS -> 2.5G * EDGE

That might be an American thing, dunno... In Europe things seem quite clear (or at least they are consistent ;) ) * GSM -> 2G * GPRS -> 2.5G * EDGE -> 2.75G * UMTS -> 3G * HSPA -> 3.5G * HSPA+ -> 3.7G * LTE -> 3.9G (here I agree with you: this is something advertised as 4G, mostly because of the speed difference) * LTE Adv -> 4G I don't know about non-European standards. That said many of those numbers are just a handy way to explain to the common user concepts like: "An intermediate GSM=2G to take us to UMTS=3G". Hence it is called 2.5G. Then UMTS takes longer to appear then expected, so in the meantime a new intermediate standard appears between GPRS=2.5G and UMTS=3G. Etc... :) Hope that helps.