What is GPRS

What is GPRS (General Packet Radio Service)?

General Packet Radio Service, more commonly known as GPRS, is a new non-voice, value added, high-speed, packet-switching technology, for GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks. It makes sending and receiving small bursts of data, such as email and web browsing, as well as large volumes of data over a mobile telephone network possible. A simple way to understand packet switching is to relate it to a jigsaw puzzle. Image how you buy a complete image or picture that has been divided up into many pieces and then placed in a box. You purchase the puzzle and reassemble it to form the original image. Before the information is sent, it is split up into separate packets and it is then reassembled at the receivers end. GPRS offers a continuous connection to the Internet for mobile phone and computer users.Experience has shown that most data communication applications do not require continuous data transfer.Users may need to be connected to a data communication network (such as a LAN, WAN, the Internet, or a corporate Intranet), but that does not mean they are sending and receiving data at all times. Data transfer needs are not generally balanced.In the majority of cases, users will tend to send out small messages but receive large downloads.Therefore, most of the data transfer is in one direction.

GPRS is expected to provide a significant boost to mobile data usage and usefulness. It is expected to greatly alter and improve the end-user experience of mobile data computing, by making it possible and cost-effective to remain constantly connected, as well as to send and receive data at much higher speeds than today.Its main innovations are that it is packet based, that it will increase data transmission speeds, and that it will extend the Internet connection all the way to the mobile PC – the user will no longer need to dial up to a separate ISP

It will complement rather than replace the current data services available through today’s GSM digital cellular networks, such as Circuit Switched Data and Short Message Service.It will also provide the type of data capabilities planned for “third generation” cellular networks, but years ahead of them.

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