UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA - FKE - UTM

122.4.1 GPRSGeneral Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a Mobile Data Service available tousers of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). GPRS can be used forservices such as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) access, Short MessageService (SMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), and for Internetcommunication services such as email and World Wide Web access. GPRS ispacket-switched, which means that multiple users share the same transmissionchannel, only transmitting when they have data to send. Thus the total availablebandwidth can be immediately dedicated to those users who are actually sending atany given moment, providing higher use where users only send or receive dataintermittently. Web browsing, receiving e-mails as they arrive and instantmessaging are examples of uses that require intermittent data transfers, whichbenefit from sharing the available bandwidth.The standard GSM network has to be altered to be able to support GPRS,since it is not able to transmit data in packet switched mode. A GSM network is amobile network that is similar to a fixed telephone network (PSTN). The maindifference to fixed network being the most unlimited mobility that is offered tosubscribers by the use of the air interface. The GSM network can be divided intovarious parts known as ‘subsystem’, each carries out different functions. The firstmajor division is between the interconnected network of digital telephoneexchanges and the network of radio transceivers that enable wirelesscommunication with the mobile. The network of exchanges is known as the‘network switching subsystem’ (NSS) and is similar to a PSTN but differs in that italso includes the database necessary for managing the mobility of the subscribers.The transceiver network is known as the ‘base station subsystem’ (BSS). The BSStogether with the mobile devices and the air interface is known as the ‘radiosubsystem’ (RSS).On the user side there is a mobile device known as the ‘mobile station’(MS) which consists of the ‘mobile equipment’ (ME) and the ‘subscriber identity