Talk:General Packet Radio Service

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--203.88.84.18 06:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

This article needs more context around or a better explanation of technical details to make it more accessible to general readers and technical readers outside the specialty, without removing technical details. See below for more information.


I've moved this from General packet radio service, to General Packet Radio Service, to be consistent with the naming from the standards body and what is widely accepted in the industry and the media. See EDGE and GSM for consistency. Fuzheado 11:27, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] External Link for consideration

[edit] "moderate" speed data transfer?

"...It provides moderate speed data transfer..."

If GPRS gives you moderate speed, then what is "low" speed? :)

I guess, an ordinary GSM CSD is a bit slower. Analog GSM dialup must be much slower. --Yyy 12:39, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Voice over GPRS? Why is GPRS so expensive?

CAN VOICE TRAVEL BY USING GPRS INTERNET ?

I MEAN TO SAY THAT CAN PC TO PC VOICE CALLS OR VOICE CHAT BE POSSIBLE ? HOW ?

I USE NOKIA 6270 AND AIRTEL GPRS SERVICE, INDIA.

Yes. Some advanced cell phone communicators and PDAs support Skype and other VoIP software. However, in my country (Sweden) the cost would be more expensive with GPRS than circuit switched communication. If the IP telephony software can utilize that we normally are silent 60% of the time it would be slightly cheaper. I.m.o., the only reason to have VoIP in a cell phone today is to utilize free access to Internet via WLAN or Bluetooth.
In theory, I think GPRS should be cheaper than circuit switching, because it is using free capacity. No spare capacity is necessary to avoid blocking, since no QoS guarantees are given. But the price is not only affected by the price, but also by market demand. Most users don't care about the GPRS price when they choose operators. Perhaps the high GPRS price is also caused by that the network providers had to invest in new GSM base station equipment a few years ago to make HSCSD and GPRS possible.
In a few years, VoIP might be standard in cellular phones. All-IP based infrastructure was suggested in early 3G discussions, but since telephony was expected to be the dominant service for several years, and the companies wanted to reuse GSM infrastructure, 3G today is based on circuit switched infrastructure in parallel with packet radio nodes, just like GSM/GPRS. 3.5G and 3.75G are optimized for packet data communication. Then perhaps the pricing can be changed, and VoIP can become a realistic option.
Mange01 13:08, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Current usage

Could we get a list of current cell phone carriers that use GPRS? Mathiastck 21:30, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Slang

I give up. What does "milk-mac" mean? Maybe this doesn't conform to a global perspective.

I removed that.Mange01 23:39, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questions

I wonder:

1. Should GPRS also be described as a 3G/UMTS service? GPRS nodes are used in at least UMTS, perhaps other 3G systems as well, and it is nowadays standardized by 3GPP.

2. Are the data rates mentioned in this article gross bitrates (raw bitrates) rather than net bit rate? I though the net bit rate was betwenn 9,100 and 13,200 bit/s per time slot. I suggest that the net bit rate should be used.

3. Does GPRS use PPP over the air interface (IP_over-PPP-over-GPRS), or is PPP only used over the serial connection between the computer and the cell phone?

4. What protocol overhead am I billed for? At what "reference point" in the protocol stack is the throughput measured? Am I billed for PPP overhead? GPRS frame overhead? ARQ retransmissions? Slotted aloha reservation requests, perhaps with retransmissions? Roaming signalling?

5. Does GPRS have roaming but no handover? In that case, is a large file transfer interrupted due to mobility? Please explain these terms in GPRS context.

6. Could someone please add details on the scheduling/MAC algorithm. I have not found any good source.

Mange01 23:39, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

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