3.5G or Broadband
Etisalat Misr is promoting its mobile network as a 3.5G and Vodafone Egypt is promoting its 3G services as a 3G broadband!
So can the ordinary customer differentiate?
Actually you need to be familiar with Telecom field in order to answer such question!
The simple answer to this question is HSDPA!
Yes HSDPA technology is considered a 3.5G & a wireless broadband technology!*
So basically Etisalat Misr decided to promote its network as a 3.5!
Which I believe it could reach to the customer as an added value to the network.
But Vodafone decided to go with the Broadband position!
Which I believe it would be understandable to the people concerned with mobile Internet.
HSDPA is an enhancement to the UMTS networks (GSM 3G Technology) to enable the cell phone to reach up to 2 MB/S (some deployments reached 14.4 MB/S).
So when you buy a 3G Phone pay attention to the feature of HSDPA as the mobile phone manufacturers only promote the technology (or the protocol) as HSDPA.
HSDPA is part of the HSPA communication protocol family as well as HSUPA and HSOPA (underdevelopment)
*Broadband is a relative term mainly used to describe high speed data transfer.
3G: Third Generation
UMTS: Universal Mobile Telecommunication System
HSPA: High Speed Packet Access
HSDPA: High Speed Download Packet Access
HSUPA: High Speed Upload Packet Access
HSOPA: High Speed OFDM Packet Access