System level performance evaluation of GPRS for various traffic models

During the GSM standardisation process data services were provisioned for. However, these were based on circuit switched connection. It is now widely accepted that circuit switched connection does not provide optimum utilisation of a communication channel for data transfer. The provision of more efficient radio data bearers has become an essential piece of the existing technologies such as GSM and the future ones such as UMTS. In GSM, ETSI finalised a new packet data service called GPRS in mid 1998. The GPRS data rates will provide bit pipes in the range 8-20 kbps per time slot. GPRS will be deployed in existing GSM networks that have been optimised for voice (circuit switched data) traffic. This paper investigates the system level performance of the GPRS coding schemes in such networks using a system level simulator. The performance is quantified in terms of the throughput and delay for various types of traffic. The results can be used to generate optimisation rules and efficient resource management algorithms.