Concepts, services, and protocols of the new GSM phase 2+ general packet radio service

For almost three years the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has been working on the specification of the general packet radio service (GPRS) for the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). In the course of 1997 standardization will come to an end, and a first introduction of GPRS by a service provider or network operator is likely to take place in 1999. The new service will accommodate data connections with variable bit rates and high bandwidth efficiency, and thus offers the possibility to attract a wide range of new applications to GSM networks. In this article possible applications and elementary concepts and service characteristics of GPRS are explained in detail. Furthermore, a medium access control protocol that conforms to the draft standard proposal for the GPRS air interface is introduced and analyzed. Thereafter, the simulation model is described and simulation results presented. The performance analysis carried out shows reasonable performance even under high load conditions.