General packet radio service in GSM

In the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) Phase 2+ development, one major activity is to specify the general packet radio service (GPRS). The standardization is expected to be completed at the end of 1997. The purpose of GPRSI like other packet data services, is to efficiently accommodate data sources that are bursty in nature. Another important goal of the technology is to make it possible for GSM license holders to share physical resources on a dynamic, flexible basis between packet data services and other GSM services. The authors present a detailed description of the GPRS system, emphasizing the radio link protocol, and demonstrate its performance. The performance measures have been obtained from the WINLAB GPRS simulator.