General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and EDGE

This chapter discusses the advantages and disadvantages of General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Enhanced Datarates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) compared to data transmission in classic Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and fixed‐line networks. It focuses on how GPRS and EDGE have been standardized and implemented. The chapter then explains some applications of GPRS and EDGE, and analyses how the network behaves during a web‐browsing session. To send packet‐switched data over existing GSM networks, GPRS was designed as a packet‐switched addition to the circuit‐switched GSM network. GPRS works in a very different way compared to the circuit‐switched GSM network. This is why three new network components were introduced into the mobile network and software updates had to be made for some of the existing components. The GPRS standards define a number of interfaces between components.