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104-729: Hutchison 3G Enterprises S.A.R.L. , commonly known as Hutchison 3G ( acronym H3G ) and trading as 3 ( Three ), is the owner of a brand name that operates several mobile phone networks and broadband Internet providers in Hong Kong, Macau, Austria, Denmark, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The brand was officially founded on 3 March 2003 in Hong Kong. As of 2022, registered Three customers worldwide numbered over 110   million. All 3-branded network companies are wholly-owned subsidiaries of CK Hutchison Holdings (formerly Hutchison Whampoa ) but

208-653: A WAP -based or IP -based gateway. The 3GPP and WAP Forum groups fostered the development of the MMS standard, which was then continued by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). MMS messages are delivered in a different way from SMS. The first step is for the sending device to encode the multimedia content in a fashion similar to sending a MIME message (MIME content formats are defined in the MMS Message Encapsulation specification). The message

312-428: A numeronym . For example, "i18n" abbreviates " internationalization ", a computer-science term for adapting software for worldwide use; the "18" represents the 18 letters that come between the first and the last in "internationalization". Similarly, "localization" can be abbreviated "l10n"; " multilingualization " "m17n"; and " accessibility " "a11y". In addition to the use of a specific number replacing that many letters,

416-645: A single word ("television" or "transvestite", for instance), and is in general spelled without punctuation (except in the plural). Although "PS" stands for the single English word " postscript " or the Latin postscriptum , it is often spelled with periods ("P.S.") as if parsed as Latin post scriptum instead. The slash ('/', or solidus ) is sometimes used to separate the letters in an acronym, as in "N/A" ("not applicable, not available") and "c/o" ("care of"). Inconveniently long words used frequently in related contexts can be represented according to their letter count as

520-469: A 2G service when they moved out of 3G coverage, allowing 3 to offer coverage to up to 99.8% of the population on 2G service. On 22 February 2006, 3 announced the first launch of HSDPA technology in Italy, marketed as "ADSM" (a contraction of " ADSL Mobile "). On 14 May 2006, 3 was the first in Italy to launch digital mobile TV using DVB-H technology. From June 2008 to November 2011, 3 Italy offered free of charge

624-497: A 3G licence in 2003, and began operations on 29 March 2007, initially in the Jakarta area only. Only after nine months of operations, 3 acquired about 2.2   million GSM customers. 3 achieved high customer mindshare maintaining at about 90% of awareness level as of April 2009. As of April 2009, 3 Indonesia had about 4.5   million customers on its GSM network. 3 offers both pre-paid and post-paid (contract) services. Currently,

728-579: A 3G licence in Israel, which was formerly operated under the brand Orange , and in Norway, where an unused licence was previously held by 3 Scandinavia . During the launch of the brand in 2002, when Hutchison Whampoa sold its 2G business to Orange, the brand name 3 (Three) represented their new 3G services. In 2003, CK Hutchison Holdings stated that the name refers to their three global telecommunication services: 3G, GSM Dualband and CDMA . The logo, which

832-680: A different meaning. Medical literature has been struggling to control the proliferation of acronyms, including efforts by the American Academy of Dermatology. Acronyms are often taught as mnemonic devices: for example the colors of the rainbow are ROY G. BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). They are also used as mental checklists: in aviation GUMPS stands for gas-undercarriage-mixture-propeller-seat belts. Other mnemonic acronyms include CAN SLIM in finance, PAVPANIC in English grammar, and PEMDAS in mathematics. It

936-517: A fee by SMS and downloadable app using Yahoo! Messenger service. Both of these were the first of their kind in Indonesia. In 2013, Charoen Pokphand divested its telecommunication business in Indonesia by selling its share of 3 to Garibaldi Thohir and private equity firm which jointly owned by Patrick Walujo and Glenn Sugita Northstar Group . In September 2021, it was announced that the latter company would be merged with Indosat (which operates

1040-417: A legacy handset or not. This method is unreliable, however, because customers can independently change their handsets, and many of these databases are not updated dynamically. MMS does not utilize operator-maintained "data" plans to distribute multimedia content; they are used only if the user clicks links inside the message. E-mail and web-based gateways to the MMS system are common. On the reception side,

1144-486: A license to build a network in Norway, but in 2011 decided against launching a 3G network in Norway. In 2008, both operations showed a positive EBITDA . In Sweden, a small part of the UMTS2100 mobile network is shared with Telenor - except for cities like Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Lund and Karlskrona where they handle their own 3G networks. In spring 2011 Three started, without Telenor, to build their own 3G Network on

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1248-781: A medial decimal point . Particularly in British and Commonwealth English , all such punctuation marking acronyms and other capitalized abbreviations is now uncommon and considered either unnecessary or incorrect. The presence of all-capital letters is now thought sufficient to indicate the nature of the UK , the EU , and the UN . Forms such as the U.S.A. for "the United States of America " are now considered to indicate American or North American English . Even within those dialects, such punctuation

1352-459: A page saying an upgrade is not available), but some S60 versions were not affected. Skype have started sending emails indicating the Skype on 3 service will be terminated on 30 September 2014, in spite of Three's original "free for life" advertising. The recommended clients for smartphones will use the phone's data connection which may be liable to charges, instead of the dedicated access number used by

1456-407: A period when the letters are pronounced individually, as in " K.G.B. ", but not when pronounced as a word, as in " NATO ". The logic of this style is that the pronunciation is reflected graphically by the punctuation scheme. When a multiple-letter abbreviation is formed from a single word, periods are in general not used, although they may be common in informal usage. "TV", for example, may stand for

1560-511: A prepaid basis. 3 also produced an application called "Skype on 3" which brought the same functionality to S60 and J2ME -capable phones (but not iPhone or Android , although some unofficial Android versions were distributed). Unlike the non-3 versions of mobile Skype, "Skype on 3" does not use the phone's data connection for voice calls, but instead places a normal phone call to a special number which 3 make available for this service. 3 does not charge users for calls to this number. This service

1664-436: A single word, such as NATO (as distinct from B-B-C )" but adds later "In everyday use, acronym is often applied to abbreviations that are technically initialisms, since they are pronounced as separate letters." The Chicago Manual of Style acknowledges the complexity ("Furthermore, an acronym and initialism are occasionally combined (JPEG), and the line between initialism and acronym is not always clear") but still defines

1768-515: A twentieth-century phenomenon. Linguist David Wilton in Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends claims that "forming words from acronyms is a distinctly twentieth- (and now twenty-first-) century phenomenon. There is only one known pre-twentieth-century [English] word with an acronymic origin and it was in vogue for only a short time in 1886. The word is colinderies or colinda , an acronym for

1872-471: A word, an abbreviation is not an acronym." In contrast, some style guides do support it, whether explicitly or implicitly. The 1994 edition of Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage defends the usage on the basis of a claim that dictionaries do not make a distinction. The BuzzFeed style guide describes CBS and PBS as "acronyms ending in S". Acronymy, like retronymy , is a linguistic process that has existed throughout history but for which there

1976-456: Is "MMS capable" or not. If it supports the standards for receiving MMS, the content is extracted and sent to a temporary storage server with an HTTP front-end. An SMS "control message" containing the URL of the content is then sent to the recipient's handset to trigger the receiver's WAP browser to open and receive the content from the embedded URL. Several other messages are exchanged to indicate

2080-584: Is 'free to browse' for some content in most 3 countries including Ireland, UK and Australia in most price plans; the user pays a fixed price for each video, text or application downloaded. Besides that, 3 UK and also 3 Ireland initially made the decision to block direct Internet access from handsets, while 3 Austria allowed access to the Internet since the beginning. In 2004, 3 released a PC Card 3G Data Card ("NetConnect Card") for Windows-based laptops which allows Internet access through 3's network directly from

2184-488: Is a question about how to pluralize acronyms. Often a writer will add an 's' following an apostrophe, as in "PC's". However, Kate L. Turabian 's A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations , writing about style in academic writings, allows for an apostrophe to form plural acronyms "only when an abbreviation contains internal periods or both capital and lowercase letters". Turabian would therefore prefer "DVDs" and "URLs" but "Ph.D.'s". The style guides of

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2288-550: Is a visual representation of the number "3", was originally three-dimensional and orange in colour. Throughout the years of operation, it has had different versions. In 2009, it was unified into a flat black and white logo. The company describes the logo's design philosophy as "cool outside and hot inside". 3 Hong Kong is operated by Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings, a subsidiary of CK Hutchison Holdings. In May 2004, its affiliated 2G operator, Orange, re-branded its services and changed its name to 3 Dualband, referring to

2392-512: Is added. The commercial introduction of MMS started in March 2002, although picture messaging had already been established in Japan. It was built using the technology of SMS as a captive technology which enabled service providers to "collect a fee every time anyone snaps a photo." MMS was designed to be able to work on the then-new GPRS and 3G networks and could be implemented through either

2496-650: Is available in Australia, Ireland and the UK; it has been discontinued in Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy and Sweden. A company called iSkoot was behind at least some of the clients and back-end servers but iSkoot announced a shutdown scheduled for 20 January 2011. It appears this shutdown initially affected the J2ME version and some Skypephones (which now show a "click to upgrade" link which either doesn't function or takes you to

2600-721: Is becoming increasingly uncommon. Some style guides , such as that of the BBC , no longer require punctuation to show ellipsis ; some even proscribe it. Larry Trask , American author of The Penguin Guide to Punctuation , states categorically that, in British English , "this tiresome and unnecessary practice is now obsolete." Nevertheless, some influential style guides , many of them American , still require periods in certain instances. For example, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage recommends following each segment with

2704-411: Is common for grammatical contractions (e.g. don't , y'all , and ain't ) and for contractions marking unusual pronunciations (e.g. a'ight , cap'n , and fo'c'sle for "all right", "captain", and "forecastle"). By the early twentieth century, it was standard to use a full stop/period/point , especially in the cases of initialisms and acronyms. Previously, especially for Latin abbreviations , this

2808-621: Is covered in South Kalimantan and Sulawesi is covered in South Sulawesi. By 2009, the 3 UMTS/HSDPA service was available in most parts of Java, especially big cities like Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung. 3 Indonesia launched its new unlimited text and MMS service for a fee with Facebook on 8 April 2009, so registered 3 customers can update status, write on their "wall", or upload new pictures free of charge. Besides Facebook, 3 also cooperated with Yahoo! to give unlimited chat for

2912-771: Is due in part to the wide adoption of smartphones . However take-up of MMS never matched the widespread popularity of SMS text messaging. Due to lower cost and improved functionality provided by modern internet-based instant messengers such as WhatsApp , Telegram , and Signal , MMS usage has declined, and it has been discontinued by several telcos since the early 2020s. Countries with operators that have discontinued MMS include: India (BSNL; from 1 November 2015), Philippines (Sun Cellular, Smart Communications, TNT; from 28 September 2018), Singapore (Singtel, M1, Starhub; from 16 November 2021), Kazakhstan (Kcell; from 6 May 2022), Switzerland (Swisscom, Salt Mobile; from 10 January 2023), Germany (Vodafone; from 17 January 2023). RCS

3016-631: Is especially important for paper media, where no search utility is available to find the first use.) It also gives students a convenient review list to memorize the important acronyms introduced in a textbook chapter. Expansion at first use and abbreviation keys originated in the print era, but they are equally useful for electronic text . While acronyms provide convenience and succinctness for specialists, they often degenerate into confusing jargon . This may be intentional, to exclude readers without domain-specific knowledge. New acronyms may also confuse when they coincide with an already existing acronym having

3120-485: Is expected to expand over time. 3 Italy (formerly known as Andala) was founded in November 1999 and controlled by Sardinian Internet company Tiscali , Franco Bernabè and Sanpaolo IMI . It was the first Italian mobile operator to offer 3G services (UMTS), launched in March 2003. As of March 2010, 3 Italy had 9   million registered customers. It had a roaming agreement with TIM which allowed its customers to get

3224-596: Is formed from the Greek roots akro- , meaning 'height, summit, or tip', and -nym , 'name'. This neoclassical compound appears to have originated in German , with attestations for the German form Akronym appearing as early as 1921. Citations in English date to a 1940 translation of a novel by the German writer Lion Feuchtwanger . It is an unsettled question in English lexicography and style guides whether it

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3328-464: Is generally said as two letters, but IPsec for Internet Protocol Security is usually pronounced as / ˌ aɪ ˈ p iː s ɛ k / or / ˈ ɪ p s ɛ k / , along with variant capitalization like "IPSEC" and "Ipsec". Pronunciation may even vary within a single speaker's vocabulary, depending on narrow contexts. As an example, the database programming language SQL is usually said as three letters, but in reference to Microsoft's implementation

3432-446: Is its original meaning and in common use. Dictionary and style-guide editors dispute whether the term acronym can be legitimately applied to abbreviations which are not pronounced as words, and they do not agree on acronym spacing , casing , and punctuation . The phrase that the acronym stands for is called its expansion . The meaning of an acronym includes both its expansion and the meaning of its expansion. The word acronym

3536-550: Is legitimate to use the word acronym to describe forms that use initials but are not pronounced as a word. While there is plenty of evidence that acronym is used widely in this way, some sources do not acknowledge this usage, reserving the term acronym only for forms pronounced as a word, and using initialism or abbreviation for those that are not. Some sources acknowledge the usage, but vary in whether they criticize or forbid it, allow it without comment, or explicitly advocate it. Some mainstream English dictionaries from across

3640-444: Is not available. Simultaneous clients of T-Mobile (including tele.ring ) will be able to roam on 3's UMTS-network where T-Mobile's UMTS-network is not available. The roaming agreement with A1 will be continued parallel until year-end. On 3 February 2012, Hutchison Whampoa announced that it had bought Orange for US$ 1.7   billion, from France Télécom which owned a 35% stake, and private equity firm Mid Europa Partners , which held

3744-459: Is not uncommon for acronyms to be cited in a kind of false etymology , called a folk etymology , for a word. Such etymologies persist in popular culture but have no factual basis in historical linguistics , and are examples of language-related urban legends . For example, " cop " is commonly cited as being derived, it is presumed, from "constable on patrol", and " posh " from " port outward, starboard home ". With some of these specious expansions,

3848-471: Is possible because of the roaming agreements between the networks, which provide service to other partners' customers free of internal roaming charges. This means that the marginal cost of a roaming call is much the same as a call on the home network. Acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with

3952-506: Is then forwarded to the carrier's MMS store and forward server, known as the MMSC (Multimedia Messaging Service Centre). If the receiver is on a carrier different from the sender, then the MMSC acts as a relay, and forwards the message to the MMSC of the recipient's carrier using the Internet. Once the recipient's MMSC has received a message, it first determines whether the receiver's handset

4056-415: Is traditionally pronounced like the word sequel . In writing for a broad audience, the words of an acronym are typically written out in full at its first occurrence within a given text. Expansion At First Use (EAFU) benefits readers unfamiliar with the acronym. Another text aid is an abbreviation key which lists and expands all acronyms used, a reference for readers who skipped past the first use. (This

4160-516: The Colonial and Indian Exposition held in London in that year." However, although acronymic words seem not to have been employed in general vocabulary before the twentieth century (as Wilton points out), the concept of their formation is treated as effortlessly understood (and evidently not novel) in an Edgar Allan Poe story of the 1830s, " How to Write a Blackwood Article ", which includes

4264-664: The GSM product, and 3 CDMA, referring to the CDMA product. On 29 May 2008, Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings announced that it has signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Hong Kong later that year under 3. In 2012, a partnership with Vodafone was launched and 3 Hong Kong is a member of the Conexus Mobile Alliance. Ownership: 3 Macau launched in 2000 providing GSM dual-band services. In 2007, they launched 3G services. In 2008, 3 Macau brought

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4368-496: The IM3 networks); the merger closed on 4 January 2022 with Indosat as the surviving entity. Ownership of Indosat: Drei Austria started operations in May 2003. The company promised to have 95% population coverage with HSDPA end of 2007. By 2008, 3's 3G coverage reached 94% of the population. Outside the coverage of its own 3G-network ( UMTS / HSDPA / HSPA+ ) it relies on national roaming on

4472-623: The Modern Language Association and American Psychological Association prohibit apostrophes from being used to pluralize acronyms regardless of periods (so "compact discs" would be "CDs" or "C.D.s"), whereas The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage requires an apostrophe when pluralizing all abbreviations regardless of periods (preferring "PC's, TV's and VCR's"). Possessive plurals that also include apostrophes for mere pluralization and periods appear especially complex: for example, "the C.D.'s' labels" (the labels of

4576-539: The Restoration witticism arranging the names of some members of Charles II 's Committee for Foreign Affairs to produce the "CABAL" ministry . OK , a term of disputed origin, dates back at least to the early nineteenth century and is now used around the world. Acronyms are used most often to abbreviate names of organizations and long or frequently referenced terms. The armed forces and government agencies frequently employ acronyms; some well-known examples from

4680-527: The ownership structure varies. CK Hutchison Holdings owns direct majority interests of six networks through 3 Group Europe , including Austria, Denmark, Italy, Ireland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings operates the networks in Hong Kong and Macau, while Hutchison Telecommunications International operates the network in Indonesia. All 3-branded networks provide 4G and 3G services; some also run 2G networks and 5G services. CK Hutchison Holdings no longer holds

4784-480: The "belief" that the etymology is acronymic has clearly been tongue-in-cheek among many citers, as with "gentlemen only, ladies forbidden" for " golf ", although many other (more credulous ) people have uncritically taken it for fact. Taboo words in particular commonly have such false etymologies: " shit " from "ship/store high in transit" or "special high-intensity training" and " fuck " from "for unlawful carnal knowledge", or "fornication under consent/command of

4888-463: The 160-character SMS limit, and to save time, acronyms such as "GF" ("girlfriend"), "LOL" ("laughing out loud"), and "DL" ("download" or "down low") have become popular. Some prescriptivists disdain texting acronyms and abbreviations as decreasing clarity, or as failure to use "pure" or "proper" English. Others point out that languages have always continually changed , and argue that acronyms should be embraced as inevitable, or as innovation that adapts

4992-461: The 18 letters between the initial "i" and the final "n"). Authors of expository writing will sometimes capitalize or otherwise distinctively format the initials of the expansion for pedagogical emphasis (for example, writing: "the onset of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF)" or "the onset of c ongestive h eart f ailure (CHF)"). Capitalization like this, however, conflicts with the convention of English orthography, which generally reserves capitals in

5096-466: The British press may render it "Nato"), but uses lower case in " Unicef " (from "United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund") because it is more than four letters, and to style it in caps might look ungainly (flirting with the appearance of "shouting capitals"). While abbreviations typically exclude the initials of short function words (such as "and", "or", "of", or "to"), this is not always

5200-844: The English-speaking world affirm a sense of acronym which does not require being pronounced as a word. American English dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster , Dictionary.com's Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary as well as the British Oxford English Dictionary and the Australian Macquarie Dictionary all include a sense in their entries for acronym equating it with initialism , although The American Heritage Dictionary criticizes it with

5304-465: The Mobile number at a small fee, or was directed to Voicemail on the mobile handset. These plans started at a very competitive price of $ 10.00 per month, and local calls from the local Zone to a local landline was charged at 20c per local call, making their service cheaper than those of Telstra or Optus . The Orange One network was not as vast as others, and so Orange made arrangements with Telstra to allow

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5408-524: The Orange brand name, as Orange One. It allowed customers to use their 3-branded CDMA mobile phone as a home phone when at home. Calls made from their mobile were charged at rates similar to those of a landline. Customers also received a "Local Zone " number allowing them to be called on a Landline number whilst at home. Should the phone be out of the Local zone, Calls made to the landline number either diverted to

5512-564: The U.S. Navy, is "COMCRUDESPAC", which stands for "commander, cruisers destroyers Pacific"; it is also seen as "ComCruDesPac". Inventors are encouraged to anticipate the formation of acronyms by making new terms "YABA-compatible" ("yet another bloody acronym"), meaning the term's acronym can be pronounced and is not an offensive word: "When choosing a new name, be sure it is 'YABA-compatible'." Acronym use has been further popularized by text messaging on mobile phones with short message service (SMS), and instant messenger (IM). To fit messages into

5616-468: The UK, as well as online retailers. In 2005, an expansion of the 3Store portfolio saw stores opened in larger malls throughout the UK, such as the Bluewater shopping centre, and The Mall at Cribbs Causeway near Bristol . On 24 October 2006, Three announced that it had purchased 95 high street shops from O2 and The Link . Three's UK division is owned entirely by CK Hutchison Holdings. In June 2023, it

5720-584: The UMTS 900-band which will give a bigger coverage. UMTS 900 and LTE 800 is rolled out using the same base stations. Today 3 Sweden covers about 98.5% of the Swedish population. In May 2012, 3 Sweden launched its first LTE services. The network uses the TDD2600, FDD2600, FDD2100 and FDD800 bands. The network was launched with ZTE and according to ZTE, this is the world's first LTE network to use both FDD and TDD at

5824-560: The United States are among the " alphabet agencies " (jokingly referred to as " alphabet soup ") created under the New Deal by Franklin D. Roosevelt (himself known as "FDR"). Business and industry also coin acronyms prolifically. The rapid advance of science and technology also drives the usage, as new inventions and concepts with multiword names create a demand for shorter, more pronounceable names. One representative example, from

5928-647: The Vodafone brand. The merger was approved by shareholders and regulators on 29 May 2009, and Vodafone Hutchison Australia was established in June 2009. The Three and Vodafone networks remained separate until August 2009. Vodafone phased out the Three brand from late 2011 onwards. No new registrations to the Three brand were made after this time, and from 30 August 2013, all Three Mobile systems and accounts were closed. Hutchison formerly operated an Australian CDMA network under

6032-411: The acronym may use normal case rules, e.g. it would appear generally in lower case, but with an initial capital when starting a sentence or when in a title. Once knowledge of the words underlying such an acronym has faded from common recall, the acronym may be termed an anacronym . Examples of anacronyms are the words " scuba ", " radar ", and " laser ". The word "an acro nym" should not be confused with

6136-590: The adoption of acronyms was modern warfare, with its many highly technical terms. While there is no recorded use of military acronyms dating from the American Civil War (acronyms such as "ANV" for " Army of Northern Virginia " post-date the war itself), they became somewhat common in World War I , and by World War II they were widespread even in the slang of soldiers, who referred to themselves as G.I.s . The widespread, frequent use of acronyms across

6240-506: The apostrophe should be reserved for the possessive ("the TV's antenna"). In some languages, the convention of doubling the letters in the acronym is used to indicate plural words: for example, the Spanish EE.UU. , for Estados Unidos ('United States'). This old convention is still sometimes followed for a limited number of English abbreviations, such as SS. for Saints , pp. for

6344-1163: The case. Sometimes function words are included to make a pronounceable acronym, such as CORE ( Congress of Racial Equality ). Sometimes the letters representing these words are written in lower case, such as in the cases of "TfL" (" Transport for London ") and LotR ( The Lord of the Rings ); this usually occurs when the acronym represents a multi-word proper noun. Numbers (both cardinal and ordinal ) in names are often represented by digits rather than initial letters, as in "4GL" (" fourth generation language ") or "G77" (" Group of 77 "). Large numbers may use metric prefixes , as with " Y2K " for "Year 2000". Exceptions using initials for numbers include " TLA " ("three-letter acronym/abbreviation") and "GoF" (" Gang of Four "). Abbreviations using numbers for other purposes include repetitions, such as " A2DP " ("Advanced Audio Distribution Profile"), " W3C " ("World Wide Web Consortium"), and T3 ( Trends, Tips & Tools for Everyday Living ); pronunciation, such as " B2B " ("business to business"); and numeronyms , such as "i18n" ("internationalization"; "18" represents

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6448-573: The client, which was free to call. In February 2007, 3 introduced '3 Like Home', a service that in theory allows subscribers to use any 3-branded network (with the exception of 3 Indonesia) without having to pay additional roaming charges, instead paying the same amount for voice, data, and messaging services as they would do on their home network. This also allows users to use their free or inclusive bundles and allowances while abroad. However, pre-pay customers do not benefit fully, as they cannot use each 3 branded network for '3 Like Home'. This arrangement

6552-413: The compact discs). In some instances, however, an apostrophe may increase clarity: for example, if the final letter of an abbreviation is "S", as in "SOS's" (although abbreviations ending with S can also take "-es", e.g. "SOSes"), or when pluralizing an abbreviation that has periods. A particularly rich source of options arises when the plural of an acronym would normally be indicated in a word other than

6656-545: The computer, accompanied by a range of data and business tariffs. Later, more cards and USB modems for HSDPA were introduced. In November 2007, 3 started to sell the Skypephone, which was developed in conjunction with the Chinese phone manufacturer Amoi and Skype , combining the functionality of a UMTS handset with free voice calls and instant messages from Skype. The phones were sold exclusively by 3 on contract and on

6760-401: The content is usually sent to the receiver's phone in a normal text message. This behavior is usually known as a "legacy experience" since content can still be received by the user. The method for determining whether a handset is MMS capable is not specified by the standards. A database is usually maintained by the operator, and in it each mobile phone number is marked as being associated with

6864-484: The content servers can typically receive service requests both from WAP and normal HTTP browsers, so delivery via the web is simple. For sending from external sources to handsets, most carriers allow a MIME encoded message to be sent to the receiver's phone number using a special e-mail address combining the recipient's public phone number and a special domain name, which is typically carrier-specific. There are some challenges with MMS that do not exist with SMS: Although

6968-564: The contrived acronym "P.R.E.T.T.Y.B.L.U.E.B.A.T.C.H." The use of Latin and Neo-Latin terms in vernaculars has been pan-European and pre-dates modern English. Some examples of acronyms in this class are: The earliest example of a word derived from an acronym listed by the OED is "abjud" (now " abjad "), formed from the original first four letters of the Arabic alphabet in the late eighteenth century. Some acrostics pre-date this, however, such as

7072-532: The core networks were separate), covering approximately 56% of Australia's population. The 3G network covered Sydney , Melbourne , Brisbane , Adelaide , Perth , the Gold Coast , Canberra , Geelong , Frankston and Wollongong . On 9 February 2009, Three and Vodafone announced that they would be merging their Australian operations into a 50–50 joint venture called Vodafone Hutchison Australia . All products and services offered by VHA would be marketed under

7176-459: The day that 3G services went live across the country, and handsets went on sale later that month. On 9 December 2004, Three announced that it was the first network to meet its regulatory requirement of 80% population coverage in the UK. Three operates 3G, 4G and 5G services, and maintains a national roaming agreement with EE to provide 2G services where 3G is unavailable (until 2006, Three partnered with O2 for these services). 2G fallback coverage

7280-718: The deal. The European Commission approved the merger in 2014. The O2 brand was phased out and its operations fully merged into Three on 2 March 2015. On 27 January 2014, Three launched its 4G network in Dublin , Cork , Galway , Limerick , Wexford and Waterford . By March 2014, Three had expanded its 4G coverage to a further 11 towns. In 2016, Three started rolling out 4G+ claiming peak speeds of 225 Mbit/s. 4G coverage currently sits at 97.3% as of March 2020. On 28 September 2020, Three launched its 5G network, claiming 35% population coverage on day one. Three has stated that this service will be available in 121 locations but coverage

7384-438: The dictionary entries and style guide recommendations regarding the term acronym through the twentieth century did not explicitly acknowledge or support the expansive sense. The Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage from 1994 is one of the earliest publications to advocate for the expansive sense, and all the major dictionary editions that include a sense of acronym equating it with initialism were first published in

7488-664: The exclusive sense for acronym and its earliest citation was from 1943. In early December 2010, Duke University researcher Stephen Goranson published a citation for acronym to the American Dialect Society e-mail discussion list which refers to PGN being pronounced "pee-gee-enn", antedating English language usage of the word to 1940. Linguist Ben Zimmer then mentioned this citation in his December 16, 2010 " On Language " column about acronyms in The New York Times Magazine . By 2011,

7592-763: The final word if spelled out in full. A classic example is "Member of Parliament", which in plural is "Members of Parliament". It is possible then to abbreviate this as "M's P", which was fairly common in mid-twentieth-century Australian news writing (or similar ), and used by former Australian Prime Minister Ben Chifley . This usage is less common than forms with "s" at the end, such as "MPs", and may appear dated or pedantic. In common usage, therefore, "weapons of mass destruction" becomes "WMDs", "prisoners of war" becomes "POWs", and "runs batted in" becomes "RBIs". Abbreviations that come from single, rather than multiple, words – such as "TV" ("television") – are usually pluralized without apostrophes ("two TVs"); most writers feel that

7696-464: The first letter of acronyms, reserving all-caps styling for initialisms, writing the pronounced acronyms "Nato" and "Aids" in mixed case, but the initialisms "USA" and "FBI" in all caps. For example, this is the style used in The Guardian , and BBC News typically edits to this style (though its official style guide, dating from 2003, still recommends all-caps ). The logic of this style is that

7800-475: The iPhone to Macau an agreement with Apple. They currently provide both 3G and 4G services. In the 2G and 3G eras, it was the second largest mobile operator in Macau. In the 2G era, its market share was approximately 31%, as of December 31, 2003. In the 3G era, its market share was approximately 33% in terms of the number of customers, as of 31 December 2008. Tri Indonesia was founded as a company in 2000, received

7904-456: The initial letter of each word in all caps with no punctuation . For some, an initialism or alphabetism , connotes this general meaning, and an acronym is a subset with a narrower definition: an initialism pronounced as a word rather than as a sequence of letters. In this sense, NASA / ˈ n æ s ə / is an acronym but USA / j uː ɛ s ˈ eɪ / is not. The broader sense of acronym , ignoring pronunciation,

8008-435: The king". In English, abbreviations have previously been marked by a wide variety of punctuation . Obsolete forms include using an overbar or colon to show the ellipsis of letters following the initial part. The forward slash is still common in many dialects for some fixed expressions—such as in w/ for "with" or A/C for " air conditioning "—while only infrequently being used to abbreviate new terms. The apostrophe

8112-500: The label "usage problem". However, many English language dictionaries, such as the Collins COBUILD Advanced Dictionary , Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary , Macmillan Dictionary , Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English , New Oxford American Dictionary , Webster's New World Dictionary , and Lexico from Oxford University Press do not acknowledge such a sense. Most of

8216-836: The language to changing circumstances. In this view, the modern practice is just the "proper" English of the current generation of speakers, much like the earlier abbreviation of corporation names on ticker tape or newspapers. Exact pronunciation of "word acronyms" (those pronounced as words rather than sounded out as individual letters) often vary by speaker population. These may be regional, occupational, or generational differences, or simply personal preference. For instance, there have been decades of online debate about how to pronounce GIF ( / ɡ ɪ f / or / dʒ ɪ f / ) and BIOS ( / ˈ b aɪ oʊ s / , / ˈ b aɪ oʊ z / , or / ˈ b aɪ ɒ s / ). Similarly, some letter-by-letter initialisms may become word acronyms over time, especially in combining forms: IP for Internet Protocol

8320-625: The middle of sentences for proper nouns; when following the AMA Manual of Style , this would instead be rendered as "the onset of congestive heart failure (CHF)". Multimedia Messaging Service Media companies have utilized MMS on a commercial basis as a method of delivering news and entertainment content, and retailers have deployed it as a tool for delivering scannable coupon codes, product images, videos, and other information. On (mainly) older devices, messages that start off with text, as SMS, are converted to and sent as an MMS when an emoji

8424-418: The more general "x" can be used to replace an unspecified number of letters. Examples include "Crxn" for "crystallization" and the series familiar to physicians for history , diagnosis , and treatment ("hx", "dx", "tx"). Terms relating to a command structure may also sometimes use this formatting, for example gold, silver, and bronze levels of command in UK policing being referred to as Gx, Sx, and Bx. There

8528-779: The network of T-Mobile Austria (before Mid-2012, the network of A1 was used for national roaming). 3 Austria is the first in Austria to offer its customers so called "HD Mobile TV " based on the H.264 encoding standard, and won IIR telcon awards for their eBay (2006) and Xseries Gold (2007) offerings. 3 Austria won a DVB-H license and launched the service in June 2008, with three devices and free usage of Mobile TV. In September 2010 – The number of one million customers were exceeded. In November 2011 – 3 Austria launched HD voice and LTE In January 2012, 3 Austria announced its national roaming agreement with T-Mobile, which will introduce from July 2012. Customers of 3 Austria will be able to roam on T-Mobile's GSM-network where 3's GSM-network

8632-442: The phone as home in 50+ countries like (Austria, Cyprus, United States of America|USA, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Ireland, UK, Spain, Portugal, Malta, Puerto Rico, Greece, San Marino, Singapore, Switzerland, Netherlands, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Germany). Ownership: Three Ireland launched on 26 July 2005 as Ireland's fourth mobile network operator behind Vodafone Ireland , O2 Ireland and Meteor . Service

8736-729: The plural of 'pages', or mss. for manuscripts . The most common capitalization scheme seen with acronyms is all-uppercase ( all caps ). Small caps are sometimes used to make the run of capital letters seem less jarring to the reader. For example, the style of some American publications, including the Atlantic Monthly and USA Today , is to use small caps for acronyms longer than three letters; thus "U.S." and " FDR " in normal caps, but " nato " in small caps. The acronyms " AD " and " BC " are often smallcapped as well, as in: "From 4004 bc to ad 525 ". Where an acronym has linguistically taken on an identity as regular word,

8840-573: The post-paid service is available in Jakarta, Bandung, and Surabaya area. 3 Indonesia current slogan is "#IniWaktunyaKita (#ItsTimeForUs)", formerly, "Dunia Tri. Kekuatanku (Tri World. My Power)", "Your mobile lifestyle provider", "Jaringan GSM-mu (Your GSM Network)", "Jaringan Selularmu (Your Cellular Network)". Sometimes, 3 use "Mau? (Want it?)" and "Hanya di 3 (Only on 3)" slogan in their ads. 3 currently has full GSM coverage in Java, Sumatera, Bali, Lombok, and Riau Islands. And as of April 2009, Kalimantan

8944-483: The pronunciation is reflected graphically by the capitalization scheme. However, it conflicts with conventional English usage of first-letter upper-casing as a marker of proper names in many cases; e.g. AIDS stands for acquired immuno-deficiency syndrome which is not a proper name, while Aids is in the style of one. Some style manuals also base the letters' case on their number. The New York Times , for example, keeps "NATO" in all capitals (while several guides in

9048-685: The publication of the 3rd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary added the expansive sense to its entry for acronym and included the 1940 citation. As the Oxford English Dictionary structures the senses in order of chronological development, it now gives the "initialism" sense first. English language usage and style guides which have entries for acronym generally criticize the usage that refers to forms that are not pronounceable words. Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage says that acronym "denotes abbreviations formed from initial letters of other words and pronounced as

9152-600: The remaining 65%. The combined business will create a mobile carrier with 2.8   million customers and more than 20% market share in Austria. JPMorgan Chase advised Hutchison on the deal, while Morgan Stanley advised France Télécom and Mid Europa Partners. 3 Danmark and Tre Sverige have a common network covering most of the two countries. Customers are "at home" on both networks, i.e. Danish customer receive calls from Denmark without paying roaming fees when they are on 3 Sweden's network and it does not cost extra to call Danish telephone numbers. 3 Scandinavia also previously had

9256-523: The same time. Later it was switched to Huawei and Ericsson and as of now in July 2022 with the roll out of 5G the whole network is changed to Ericsson and Nokia Networks, due to the ban of using Huawei to build a 5G-network. At the beginning of 2022, 3 Sweden was Sweden's fastest growing mobile operator. 3 Sweden also operates its own lower-cost flanker brand Hallon , launched in 2013. 3 Denmark and 3 Sweden has "3 Like Home" which makes it possible to use

9360-465: The services of Orange One devices to roam to the Telstra network. On 1 February 2006, it was rebranded as 3 CDMA, and this network was closed as of 9 August 2006. 3 CDMA customers were offered special tariffs and incentives to continue as customers on the 3G network, all customers either moved over to 3's 3G network or to other network providers. Like other mobile-provider Internet home pages, 3's portal

9464-470: The sides of railroad cars (e.g., "Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad" → "RF&P"); on the sides of barrels and crates; and on ticker tape and newspaper stock listings (e.g. American Telephone and Telegraph Company → AT&T). Some well-known commercial examples dating from the 1890s through 1920s include " Nabisco " ("National Biscuit Company"), " Esso " (from "S.O.", from " Standard Oil "), and " Sunoco " ("Sun Oil Company"). Another field for

9568-407: The standard does not specify a maximum size for a message, 300 kB and 600 kB are the recommended sizes used by networks for compatibility with MMS 1.2 and MMS 1.3 devices respectively. The limit for the first generation of MMS was 50 kB. Verizon launched its MMS service in July 2003. Between 2010 and 2013, MMS traffic in the U.S. increased by 70% from 57 billion to 96 billion messages sent. This

9672-476: The start of 2017, making it the country's largest mobile operator. In 2018, CK Hutchison acquired the 50% stake owned by VEON (formerly VimpelCom), to gain 100% ownership of Wind Tre. In the Italian market, services are now offered under the unified brand, officially unveiled on 6 March and commercially launched on 16 March 2020. Three UK launched as the UK's first commercial video mobile network on 3 March 2003,

9776-426: The status of the delivery attempt. Before delivering content, some MMSCs also include a conversion service that will attempt to modify the multimedia content into a format suitable for the receiver. This is known as "content adaptation". If the receiver's handset is not MMS capable, the message is usually delivered to a web-based service from where the content can be viewed from a normal internet browser. The URL for

9880-502: The terms as mutually exclusive. Other guides outright deny any legitimacy to the usage: Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words says "Abbreviations that are not pronounced as words (IBM, ABC, NFL) are not acronyms; they are just abbreviations." Garner's Modern American Usage says "An acronym is made from the first letters or parts of a compound term. It's read or spoken as a single word, not letter by letter." The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage says "Unless pronounced as

9984-570: The twenty-first century. The trend among dictionary editors appears to be towards including a sense defining acronym as initialism : the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary added such a sense in its 11th edition in 2003, and both the Oxford English Dictionary and The American Heritage Dictionary added such senses in their 2011 editions. The 1989 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary only included

10088-524: The viewing of Rai 1 , Rai 2 , Canale 5 , Italia 1 , Rete 4 , Sky Meteo24 , Current TV and La7 television channels with DVB-H technology. In 2015, CK Hutchison Holdings and VimpelCom agreed to merge their telecommunications businesses in Italy – 3 Italy and Wind Telecomunicazioni – and this was completed in December 2016. The resulting company, 50% owned by each partner, rebranded as Wind Tre and had around 31   million mobile customers at

10192-536: The whole range of linguistic registers is relatively new in most languages, becoming increasingly evident since the mid-twentieth century. As literacy spread and technology produced a constant stream of new and complex terms, abbreviations became increasingly convenient. The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ) records the first printed use of the word initialism as occurring in 1899, but it did not come into general use until 1965, well after acronym had become common. In English, acronyms pronounced as words may be

10296-425: The word " an achro nym ", which is a type of misnomer. Words derived from an acronym by affixing are typically expressed in mixed case, so the root acronym is clear. For example, "pre-WWII politics", "post-NATO world", " DNase ". In some cases a derived acronym may also be expressed in mixed case. For example, " messenger RNA " and " transfer RNA " become "mRNA" and "tRNA". Some publications choose to capitalize only

10400-519: Was announced that, subject to regulatory approval Vodafone UK and Three UK will merge to create Britain's biggest mobile network, with Vodafone owning 51% and CK Hutchison Holdings owning 49% of the new service. As of October 2024, the regulatory investigation is ongoing. Hutchison launched the Three Australia network in 2003. It operated a 2,100 MHz 3G network in a 50/50 partnership with Telstra (the radio networks were shared while

10504-511: Was done with a full space between every full word (e.g. A. D. , i. e. , and e. g. for " Anno Domini ", " id est ", and " exempli gratia "). This even included punctuation after both Roman and Arabic numerals to indicate their use in place of the full names of each number (e.g. LII. or 52. in place of "fifty-two" and "1/4." or "1./4." to indicate "one-fourth"). Both conventions have fallen out of common use in all dialects of English, except in places where an Arabic decimal includes

10608-498: Was initially offered as post-paid only, but on 16 May 2006, the introduction of a pre-paid service, known as 3Pay, was announced. Three operates 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G services. Until 2015, Three had a roaming agreement with Vodafone to provide 2G coverage where its original 3G network was unavailable. On 24 June 2013, it was announced that CK Hutchison Holdings would acquire Telefónica 's Irish mobile operations, O2, for €780   million, to be merged into Three Ireland upon completion of

10712-651: Was largely dropped as 3G became ubiquitous. On 24 March 2015, Three announced its intention to acquire the UK operations of Spanish operator O2 for £10.25   billion, but a year later, the EU Commission blocked the takeover. Three's first retail stores (branded 3Store) opened at the same time as the network launched, in London's Oxford Street and Kensington High Street , and at the Mailbox Birmingham . Three's handsets and contracts are also sold by mobile telephony chains and independents throughout

10816-449: Was little to no naming , conscious attention, or systematic analysis until relatively recent times. Like retronymy, it became much more common in the twentieth century than it had formerly been. Ancient examples of acronymy (before the term "acronym" was invented) include the following: During the mid- to late nineteenth century, acronyms became a trend among American and European businessmen: abbreviating corporation names, such as on

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