General Packet Radio System

The GPRS is a new service that provides actual packet radio access for mobile Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and Time-Division Multiple Access (TDMA) users. The main benefits of GPRS are that it reserves radio resources only when there is data to send and it reduces reliance on traditional circuit-switched network elements. The increased functionality of GPRS will decrease the incremental cost to provide data services, an occurrence that will, in turn, increase the penetration of data services among consumer and business users.

In addition, GPRS will allow improved quality of data services as measured in terms of reliability, response time, and features supported. The unique applications that will be developed with GPRS will appeal to a broad base of mobile subscribers and allow operators to differentiate their services. These new services will increase capacity requirements on the radio and base-station subsystem resources. One method GPRS uses to alleviate the capacity impacts is sharing the same radio resource among all mobile stations in a cell, providing effective use of the scarce resources. In addition, new core network elements will be deployed to support the high burst ness of data services more efficiently.

The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a new non voice value added service that allows information to be sent and received across a mobile telephone network. It supplements today s Circuit Switched Data and Short Message Service. GPRS is NOT related to GPS (the Global Positioning System), a similar acronym that is often used in mobile contexts.

In addition to providing new services for today s mobile user, GPRS is important as a migration step toward third-generation (3G) networks. GPRS will allow network operators to implement a IP-based core architecture for data