Wireless Master

Though this is a very common word in popular parlance today, a lot of people are still not aware of the full form of GPRS even though they are probably using this technology in their everyday life to surf the Internet and check and answer their mail all the time, on their cellphones as that is the most widely used application of GPRS technology. So, what is the full form of the word? It is General Packet Radio Service. This is a data transmission service which is primarily mobile and therefore used by the three different systems of telecommunication. These are the 2nd Generation or the 2G users, the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and the 3G or the third Generation.

The way that data is transferred through the GPRS system is charged according to the number of megabytes that are transferred in a second. Data transfer in GPRS is radically different from the circuit switched data connections where the number of minutes that the connection exists is calculated as opposed to the amount of data which is calculated and thereby charged in the GPRS mode of communication. GPRS is a packet switched service whereas the traditional mode is a circuit switched service. The difference primarily is that GPRS uses the system of packet data where all the data that is being transmitted and is about to be transmitted is grouped into small chunks or blocks called “packets”. No matter what the content, size, structure of the data is, all of it is grouped that way and transmitted through a shared network. In circuit switching, there is a channel which is established between the users and there are nodes and terminals created through which the users communicate with each other at all times. In a way the circuit mode is better because here there is a constant rate of data transfer within the circuit whereas in the packet switched connection, packets of data are often queued up and therefore there is a delay caused by this congestion. But again in a circuit switched connection, one particular circuit cannot be used by other users unless the previous users are done. Or, new channels will have to be created as and when it's required.

Within a 2G or a 2nd Generation communications system, GPRS can provide data transfer speeds of approximately 56 to 114 kilobytes per second.

When GPRS is used along with the communication systems of 2G or 2nd Generation cellular systems, then the combined cellular system is called 2.5G. This basically implies that the technology system is between the 2nd Generation and the 3rd Generation. This provides a data speed which is more or less up to the standard and nothing too fast. 2.5G uses “time division multiple access”. GSM is the only network within which GPRS is working and it has been initiated into GSM Release 97 and newer releases . The first time it was standardized by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.