SMS over GPRS

A Comparison Between GSM and GPRS Architectures as Carriers for SMS and Between SMS and Other Protocols as Carriers of Short Messages over GPRS 1
Charlotta B a ath, <cb@kth.se> Joanna K uhn, <joannak@kth.se> 23rd April 2003

Report for the course 2G1330 Wireless and Mobile Network Architectures given by professor Gerald Q. Maguire Jr. at the Department of Microelectronics and Information Technology (IMIT), Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden.

Abstract The short message service (SMS) has gained great popularity over the last several years. SMS is a protocol and architecture integrated in the GSM network. In this report we make comparisons between the GSM and GPRS architectures as carriers of SMS. SMS is also compared with other protocols for sending short text messages. We show that SMS is a useful protocol even as we switch to GPRS, since it does not exchange as many packets as other protocols when delivering a message, thereby being considerably faster over a radio network such as GSM/GPRS. Other ways of sending short text messages, such as email and instant messaging, are on the other hand cheaper (despite the bigger load on the network). Therefore we predict that the prices for SMS will drop. We also foretell that new protocols will be developed, suitable not only for the Internet, but for networks with a high packet cost (measured in time).

Contents
1 Introduction 1.1 Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 GSM 2.1 GSM 2.2 GSM 2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3 3 SMS 3.1 SMS 3.2 SMS 3.3 SMS 3.4 SMS 3.5 SMS 3.5.1 3.5.2 3.5.3 1 1 1 3 3 4 4 4 4 6 6 6 7 7 10 12 12 12 13 13 13 14 15 15 15 15 16 16 18 18

Architecture . . . . Channels . . . . . . Physical Channels Logical Channels . Data Rate . . . . .

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Architecture . . . . Features and Usage Delivery Procedure Protocol Hierarchy over GSM . . . . . Data Rate . . . . Time . . . . . . . Price . . . . . . .

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4 GPRS 4.1 GPRS Architecture . . . . . . . . . 4.2 GPRS Channels . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 Data Rate . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 SMS over GPRS . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.2 Price . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Email over GPRS . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.1 Sending Email Using SMTP 4.4.2 Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.3 Price and Cost . . . . . . . 4.5 Instant Messaging over GPRS . . .

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5 Conclusions 5.1 SMS is Here To Stay . . . . . . . . 5.2 Prices Will Drop For SMS . . . . . 5.3 Operator Independent Alternatives 5.4 Acknowledgment . . . . . . . . . .

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A Mail Sessions over GPRS A.1 A SMTP Session . . . . . . . . . . . A.1.1 Tcpdump output . . . . . . . A.2 A POP3 Session . . . . . . . . . . . A.2.1 Receiving email using POP3 A.2.2 Tcpdump output . . . . . . .

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Chapter 1

Introduction
This report investigates SMS over GPRS from both technical and economic points of view. We begin in chapter 2 with a background on the GSM system, including a thorough description of the GSM channels and the data rate obtained over these channels. Then we continue, in chapter 3, with a description of the SMS protocols and architecture, including the data rate and price for sending a SMS message over GSM. In chapter 4 we show how the new GPRS channels work and use that to calculate the time to send a SMS message over the air interface. After that we compare SMS with email, making measurements on sending and receiving an email over GPRS. Finally we compare it with a third case, instant messaging. In chapter 5 we make some conclusions and predictions for the future.

1.1

Problem Statement

The main question we try to answer in this report is: Are we going to need SMS over GPRS? Is there something actually useful about SMS itself or does it lose its meaning with the introduction of GPRS do you need an application which only allows you to send short messages when you have the possibility, through GPRS, to do much more (e.g. send email)? Is SMS part of the past or of the future? And what about the price; SMS has up till now been a good way for the operators to make money using something originally intended for control messaging only. Will that picture change in the future?

1.2

Method

To evaluate SMS over GPRS we estimate the eciency of sending a text message of 140 octets (the original SMS message limit) in three dierent 1

cases. We calculate the data rate, or time to send one message, and price for three dierent cases; sending a text message the common way, with SMS over GSM, sending the message with SMS over GPRS and nally, sending it using ordinary email (over GPRS). Sending the message using an instant messaging protocol is also considered. The rst thing we look at is the sending of the actual message. Not the packets sent before or after, to setup or release either a SMS or email session. We choose to look at this packet when calculating the data rate and time over the air interface. This because the packet containing the actual text message will naturally be larger than the packet containing, for example, an acknowledgment. After that we measure or estimate the total time, including the setup and release phase.

Chapter 2

GSM
The global system for mobile communications (GSM) is a digital cellular communications system. GSM was originally developed in Europe (from the beginning it denoted groupe sp eciale mobile ) is now spread around the world. GSM was designed for circuit switched voice calls, but also includes the short message service (SMS), which makes it possible to send and receive short text messages via a GSM mobile phone.

2.1

GSM Architecture

The architecture of a GSM system can be divided into the mobile station (MS), the base station system (BSS), and the network and switching subsystem (NSS). The MS is carried by the user, the BS subsystem controls the radio link to the MS and the NSS performs the switching of calls between the MS and other xed or mobile network users. It also handles mobility management. The MS and the BSS communicate across the Um interface 1 also known as the radio link. The MS consists of two dierent entities which are needed in order to access the services that GSM network provides; the SIM card, that contains information about the user, and the mobile equipment, that is used to access the radio resources in the GSM network. Without a SIM card only emergency calls can be made. A GSM network normally consists of several BSSs that connect MSs in dierent geographical regions to the NSS. The BSS controls the transmitting and receiving of calls and data. The NSS manages the communication between mobile users and other users and contains databases with subscriber information needed to handle routing, authentication, and mobility.
1 The Um interface is the GSM network interface for providing circuit and packet data services over the radio interface to the MS.

One important unit in the NSS is the mobile service switching center (MSC). It is the entity that handles the switching within the network and sets up, supervises, and releases calls. It can connect phone calls between MSs within one particular GSM network, and it can connect calls between MSs in dierent GSM networks. Another unit in the NSS is the gateway mobile services switching center (GMSC). It is the gateway between the GSM network and other networks (GSM or others).

2.2

GSM Channels

The GSM radio link uses both frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) and time-division multiple access (TDMA) to share the bandwidth among the users.

2.2.1

Physical Channels

FDMA divides the frequency bands of a link into a number of separate frequency channels [3]. The GSM-900 system has two frequency bands available: 890 - 915 MHz for the uplink (direction MS to BS) and 935 - 960 MHz for the downlink (direction BS to MS). These frequency bands are divided into 124 pairs of channels with FDMA. TDMA divides the channel into time slots, such that each user gets a specied time slot to send in. The frequency channels are split into 8 time slots. The 8 time slots constitutes a TDMA frame of length 4.615 ms. Thus each time slot has the length of 4.615/8 = 0.577 ms. The recurrence of one particular time slot makes up a physical channel for the user to transmit data (voice or signaling). Hence a physical channel is dened by both the frequency and the TDMA frame time slot number. Each physical channel transmits in a series of short bursts; hence a GSM terminal using a single time slot is only transmitting 1/8 of the time [14].

2.2.2

Logical Channels

The physical channels can be used to send dierent types of data. Consequently two kinds of logical channels are dened; trac channels (TCHs) are physical channels that carry user trac (voice or data) and control channels (CCHs) that carry signaling information[1].

2.2.3

Data Rate

A TCH is dened by a multiframe that consists of 26 TDMA frames together (see Fig. 2.1). Since the length of a TDMA frame is 4.615 ms the length of this 26-frame multiframe is 26 4.615 = 120 ms. Out of these 26 frames

1 (26frame) multiframe = 26 TDMA frames

22 23 24 25

Frames 011, 1324: TCH Frames 12, 25: SACCH and unused

1 TDMA frame = 8 time slots 4.615 ms

Figure 2.1: 26 TDMA frames

Time slot 4.615/8 = 0.577 ms Burst 0.546 ms
TB 3

Data 57 encrypted bits

flag 1

Training sequence 26

Data 57 encrypted bits

flag TB GP 3 8.25 1

Figure 2.2: Time slot structure. TB is tail bits and GP guard band. 24 are used for trac, one is used for the slow associated control channel (SACCH), and one is currently unused. A logical channel can use dierent physical channels at dierent times, but a full-rate TCH (TCH/F) uses one specic time slot per TDMA frame for trac data. The 0.577 ms time slot contains a burst of 148 bits (0.546 ms) followed by 0.031 ms guard time (see Fig. 2.2). Out of these 148 bits, 2 57 = 114 bits contains data. That gives a transmission rate of 114 bits/4.615 ms = 24.7 kbit/s. Since only 24 frames of a multiframe are used for TCH, the full-rate TCH (TCH/F) actually has the data rate of 24 24.7/26 = 22.8 kbit/s. But this is just the gross bit rate; because you apply channel coding to the original data, to protect against errors, the maximum net bit rate is only 14.4 kbit/s (TCH/F14.4 dened in GSM Phase 2+). For half-rate TCH (TCH/H) the gross bit rate is only 22.8/2 = 11.4 kbit/s, since two half-rate channels are using the same time slot in alternating frames.

Chapter 3

SMS
Using the short message service (SMS) the user has the ability to send and receive text messages to and from mobile phones. SMS was created as part of the GSM Phase 1 standard. The text of an short message can consist of words or numbers or an alphanumeric combination. A short message can carry up to 140 octets of information 1 . This makes it possible to send up to 160 characters if the standard GSM alphabet, i.e. Latin, is used. When another character coding scheme is used, such as Arabic and Chinese, fewer characters (70 using 16 bits per character) will t into the 140 octets [18].

3.1

SMS Architecture

In order to provide their users with SMS, the GSM network operator has to extend their xed network with a new entity, the short message service center (SM-SC). In addition to adding the SM-SC, the GMSC, the MSC and the MS have to be modied to be able to handle short messages. Since SMS is a store and forward service, the short messages are sent via the SM-SC and not directly from sender to recipient. The SM-SC acts as a relay station for short messages, by rst storing and later forwarding them to the right destination. Each network that supports SMS has one or more SM-SCs to handle and manage short messages.

3.2

SMS Features and Usage

SMS features include conrmation of message delivery (as shown in Fig. 3.1), which lets the sender of the short message choose to receive a return message notifying him whether the short message was delivered or not. AnThe message size is constrained by the maximum frame length of 272 octets on the A interface (the interface between MSC and BSC). The overhead of higher protocol layers leaves 140 octets for the text [26].
1

other feature is that a mobile phone should be able to send and receive the short message independently of ongoing calls. When a short message is sent from the mobile phone it is called a mobile originated short message (SM MO) and when it is sent to a mobile phone it is called mobile terminated (SM MT). There is yet another type, called cell broadcast short messages (SM CB), which is used by the GSM network operator to send short messages to all users within a certain service area.

3.3

SMS Delivery Procedure

To send a single SMS message, a number of primitives are exchanged (see Fig. 3.1). The MS (1) sends a service request to the MSC, the MSC forwards a (2) service acceptance, and then (3) the SMS message is transmitted using the connection management sublayer, which is the lowest layer in the SMS protocol hierarchy. After the SMS message is transmitted the MS waits for (4) an acknowledgment as well as (5) a delivery report as mentioned above. As a nal step the MS will (6) acknowledge that the status report has been received and then, by sending a couple of more packets, the connection is released. Obviously this transmission procedure takes both time and bandwidth, but in this report we will concentrate on step (3), measuring the resulting time and cost of the actual SMS transmission as argued in chapter 1.

3.4

SMS Protocol Hierarchy

The SMS protocol hierarchy includes the application layer (SM-AL), the transfer layer (SM-TL), the relay layer (SM-RL), and the connection management sublayer (CM). If we look at the packet sent in step (3), when the actual message is being delivered (see Fig. 3.1), it is comprised of several dierent protocol data units (PDUs). Figure 3.2 shows the packet sent by the short message control protocol (SM-CP) which handles the connection management within the CM sublayer. This PDU is called CP-DATA and all the octets following the message type are the user data (i.e. payload) [7]. The user data of CP-DATA is the PDU of a higher-layer protocol, here the short message relay protocol (SM-RP). Table 3.1 shows the contents of that PDU, called RP-DATA-MO (for mobile originated ). Fields 4 to 12 represents the next protocol in the SMS protocol hierarchy, the short message transfer protocol (SM-TP). As you can see from Figure 3.2 and Table 3.1 the total size of the CPDATA packet, when all elds have their maximal length, is 2 + 175 = 177 octets. We shall use this value later when calculating the transmission speed over GSM and GPRS respectively. 7

MS
1. Service request Connection setup 2. Service accept 3. CPDATA with message 4. CPACK 5. CPDATA with status report 6. CPACK

MSC

SMSC

Short message

Delivery report

Connection release (not shown)

Figure 3.1: SMS delivery procedure (based on the description in [1]). This focuses on the messages exchanged between the MS and the MSC, but also shows two of the messages exchanged between the MSC and the SM-SC.
Bits 0 Protocol Discriminator Message type 4 Transaction 8 2 octets

Payload

Upto 175 octets

Figure 3.2: SMS packet structure for control messages [24]. Protocol discriminator 10012 identies the SMS protocol. Message types may be 000000012 CP-DATA or 000001002 CP-ACK (there is also a CP-ERROR type). 8

Field 1 2

Octet(s) 1 1

10

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Sum:

1 1 1 10 1 1 7 1 140 175

Description Length of the SMSC information (i.e. elds 13). Type-of-address of the SMSC. Indicates the format of a phone number. The most common value of this octet is 0x91, which represents the international format that starts with the country code. Service center number. The number of octets of this eld is derived from eld 1. Since 12 is the maximum number of octets for elds 1-3 together [7], this eld is limited to a maximum of 10 octets. (If the international format is used though, this eld would be of length 7.) First octet of this SMS-DELIVER message. Address-Length. Length of the sender number-elds. Type-of-address of the sender number. Same as above. Sender number. (See service center number.) Protocol identier (TP-PID) dened in [7]. Identies the above layer protocol, if any. Data coding scheme (TP-DCS). The coding scheme used within the user data (TP-UD, see below). Service center time stamp (TP-SCTS). The local time represented in semi-octets. User data length (TP-UDL). The length of message. The message (TP-UD). Max 140 octets. The number of octets in the SMS PDU.

Table 3.1: RP-DATA-MO. SMS PDU used to send the short message from the MS. This table is based on [23] and [7]. Fields 13 and 57 are address elds and can consist of a maximum of 12 octets each [7].

3.5

SMS over GSM

SACCH, the control channel that is assigned to one of the 26 frames in a TCH multiframe, is one of the two channels that can be used to send SMSs. The other channel is the standalone dedicated control channel (SDCCH). During a phone call SMSs are sent through SACCH, and otherwise, when the MS is idle, messages are sent through SDCCH. SDCCH is mainly used for signaling during the call set-up phase and has a 51-frame multiframe structure 2 . The logical channel combinations for such a multiframe containing SDCCH are SDCCH/8+SACCH/C8 FCCH+SCH+BCCH+CCCH+SDCCH/4+SACCH/C4 FCCH, SCH, BCCH and CCCH are other control channels (see Fig. 3.3 for full names). SDCCH/4 and SACCH/C4 means that it is possible to assign up to four SDCCHs with their required SACCHs. These are referred to as subchannels and they are transmitted once per 51-frame multiframe [16], where each of the subchannels occupies 4 time slots (see Fig. 3.3).

The multiframes makes up superframes of 6.12 s. One superframe consists either of 26 51-frame multiframes or 51 26-frame multiframes. By sending control information using a 51-frame structure MSs in dedicated mode (sending on a dedicated channel, e.g. TCH) can still monitor the common control channels [15].

10

51 frames S C C F S SD0 SD1 F S SD2 SD3 F S SA0 SA1

SD0

SD1

SD2

SD3

SA2

SA3

11
C: TDMA frame for CCCH B: TDMA frame for BCCH SDn: TDMA frame for SDCCH SAn: TDMA frame for SACCH

F: TDMA frame for frequency correction burst S: TDMA frame for synchronization burst

Figure 3.3: 51-frame multiframe used by the control channel SDCCH [17][6]. Note that the four SACCH-subchannels (SA0SA3) are spread over two 51-frame multiframes.

3.5.1

Data Rate

If we choose to look at SDCCH/4 3 there are 4 SDCCH bursts in each 51frame multiframe, and each SDCCH burst consists of 4 time slots (shown in Fig. 2.2). Hence every multiframe carries 4 4 2 57 = 1824 SDCCH bits. These are coded bits, coded with the GSM channel coding used for error correction and detection. In SDCCH 456 coded bits are obtained from originally 184 information bits (through adding parity bits, tail bits and then coding with a convolutional encoder). Hence a total of 184/456 1824 = 736 information bits are being sent per multiframe. Given that a 51-frame multiframe takes 51 4.615 ms = 235.365 ms we get a net bit rate of 736/235.365 = 3.12 kbit/s for SDCCH/4.

3.5.2

Time

Since a SMS of 177 octets is 177 8 = 1416 bits, it will take two multiframes (736 2 = 1472 bits) to send it, i.e. it will take 235.365 2 = 470.730 ms or roughly 0.5 seconds. That yields a bit rate of 1416/470.730 = 3.00 kbit/s. This later value is perhaps a more appropriate estimate than 3.12 kbit/s since the SMS data is sent in SDCCH bursts which are not evenly distributed over the multiframe (see Fig. 3.3). The total time however, including the setup and release phase, of sending a SMS message of 160 characters is roughly 4.6 seconds (using a Nokia 6510 MS and Telia as operator). While sending a empty message takes around 4.15 seconds.

3.5.3

Price

Today the price for sending one SMS in Sweden is between 1.25 kr and 1.50 kr (roughly between e0.1335 and e0.1869). Around Europe the price varies between e0.05 and e0.3.

For SDCCH/8 the data rate will be doubled since twice as much information is sent per multiframe.

12

Chapter 4

GPRS
GPRS is a new technology for packet data transmission based on the existing GSM network. This packet switched technology is used as a complement to the circuit switched services and SMS. It provides a connection to Internet at rates from 56 upto 115 kbit/s [19]. The advantage of GPRS, besides reusing GSM-based technology, is that applications based on standard data protocols are supported, such as IP and X.25. By sending the information as packets over unused voice channels GPRS makes more ecient use of the network resources. Still the use of traditional GSM services is not aected by the GPRS communication since voice calls are given priority for using the the radio resources. With GPRS the user seems to always be on-line, but is only charged for the amount of data sent and received, not for the time connected to the network. Since GPRS mobile phones are constantly online (within the GPRS coverage area) they are able to send and receive data at any time. GPRS is designed for fast reservation in order to quickly begin transmission of packets, between 0.5 and 1 second [20].

4.1

GPRS Architecture

The GPRS Architecture introduces two new network nodes, the serving GPRS support node (SGSN) and the gateway GPRS support node (GGSN). SGSN is at the same hierarchical level as the MSCs; it switches packets to the correct BSS. GGSN acts as the gateway between the GPRS network and external IP networks.

4.2

GPRS Channels

GPRS radio technology is, as stated earlier, based on the GSM radio architecture. The physical channel dedicated to packet data trac is called 13

Multiframe with 52 TDMA frames B0 B1 B2 T B3 B4 B5 X B6 B7 B8 T B9 B10 B11 X

T: Reserved for PTCCH

X: Idle frame

B: Block which a logical channel is mapped onto

Figure 4.1: 52-frame multiframe the packet data channel (PDCH). In a PDCH there can be dierent logical channels. One such channel is the packet data trac channel (PDTCH) which is used for the transfer of user data. The main dierence between PDTCH and the GSM TCH is that one user can occupy several PDTCHs simultaneously (i.e. get several time slots). Furthermore multiple users can share one single PDTCH (i.e. share one time slot). GPRS was designed to support bursty data trac such as web browsing. Thus, a single mobile phone can, theoretically, transmit on up to all eight channels of the same TDMA frame. However, in practice it is highly unlikely that an operator would hand out all the time slots to one single user, since the allocated PDCHs are taken from a common pool of physical channels that would otherwise be used as trac channels [4].

4.2.1

Data Rate

The multiframe that the logical GPRS channels use has a 52-frame structure (see Fig. 4.1). The 52 TDMA frames are divided into blocks of 4 TDMA frames each, making a total of 12 blocks. Each block contains 456 data bits, so on average there are 456 12/52 = 105 data bits per TDMA frame. Since each TDMA frame is 4.615 ms this gives a gross data rate of 105 bits/4.615 ms= 22.8 kbit/s, which is the same as for GSM TCH. Depending of the quality of the channel, four dierent coding schemes are used. The channel coding prevents errors by adding some redundancy to the data. The highest data rate of 21.4 kbit/s is achieved with the CS-4 coding scheme [5]. In that scheme only parity bits and ag bits are added, no encoding is done. That leaves 428 bits of information, which explains the data rate of 428/456 22.8 kbit/s = 21.4 kbit/s. If we would get all eight time slots to ourselves, we would obtain the maximum data rate of 21.4 8 = 171.2 kbit/s.

14

A more realistic assumption perhaps, is a bit rate of 40 kbit/s, which is obtained with coding scheme CS-3 and three users sharing the time slots [5].

4.3

SMS over GPRS

When using GPRS as a bearer for SMS, PDTCH can be used to transfer the message [21, 25].

4.3.1

Time

As stated above (Sect. 3.5.1) the data rate when sending a SMS over GSM (using SDCCH/4) is 3 kbit/s. This is dramatically slower than even 40 kbit/s (see above). With 40 kbit/s you will send a SMS in 177/40 = 4.425 ms. This is almost 100 times faster than SMS over GSM. Thus, as T. Kunzs states, GPRS is a fast carrier of SMSs [22]. On the other hand, even here a lot of time is spent in the setup phase. But since SMS over GPRS is not available in Sweden today we have not been able to make measurements on this. All we can say is that it should be at least as fast as sending an empty message over GSM, 4.15 seconds (see Sect. 3.5.2).

4.3.2

Price

A quick overview of the prices for GPRS trac set by operators in Sweden shows that they charge from 0.12 kr per kbyte for a subscription with 0 kr monthly fee. In Denmark the cost is considerably lower; 20 Dkr per Mbyte (in Danish crowns) and they charge 0.40 Dkr per SMS - using GPRS as carrier: SMS Hele dgnet 0,40 [35]. One can note though, that the price for sending SMS over GPRS is the same as for sending SMS over GSM. As mentioned above none of the big Swedish GSM operators oer SMS over GPRS today1 .

4.4

Email over GPRS

To be able to compare SMS in itself with other types of messaging we choosed to look rst and foremost at email. This is because it has a very widespread use and because many people already have mobile phones capable of sending and receiving email. Email is also used by many people to send short messages when we are sitting in front of the computer.
To be able to oer SMS over GPRS changes has to be made to the SMSC connecting it to the GPRS SGSN as well as to the GSM MSC [21].
1

15

When sending or receiving email over GPRS the process is similar to the SMS process shown in Fig. 3.1; a number of messages are exchanged before the actual text message can be delivered. When sending an email message from a mobile terminal the simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) [10] is used, and when fetching an email typically the post oce protocol (POP) [11] is used [31]. Since we earlier described the mobile originated SMS we continue that approach and look at SMTP, i.e. the sending portion of an email delivery. (Fetching or receiving email is analogous and described briey in the appendix, section A.2.)

4.4.1

Sending Email Using SMTP

An email message consists of three pieces [2]. 1. The envelope specied with two SMTP commands: MAIL From: and RCPT To:. The envelope is exchanged before the email message itself. 2. Headers lines that start with for example Received:, Message-ID: or Date:. 3. The body the text itself. The packet that carries the actual email consists of the headers and the body. The headers are optional, but ordinary email programs usually add a number of them, e.g. Subject: and From:. If we assume that we send a minimal message containing only 160 characters of text (as in SMS) using no headers, the nal message size including the TCP and IP headers will be 180 bytes (140 + 20 + 20 bytes), essentially the same size as the SMS message. Hence looking only at the packet containing the text message will reveal no dierence between SMS over GPRS and email over GPRS.

4.4.2

Time

If we look closer at the total sending process it is clear, however, that the SMTP protocol together with the TCP protocol uses several more packages in the setup and release phase than the SMS protocol does. Figure 4.2 shows the packets exchanged between an email client and a SMTP server over GPRS. The client is a Windows PC running Outlook Express and the server is a Debian GNU/Linux computer running Sendmail [27] version 8.12.3-6.3. The client is connected to Internet using Nokia 6510 as modem and the Nokia MS is connected to the Telia network. The timestamps shows the time the packets were sent or received at the server side, i.e. on the Debian computer. The whole session (including the plain TCP packets) is shown the appendix in section A.1. 16

Client
SYN SYN, ACK ACK 4. 5. sendmail HELO ACK 7. Packet numbers 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Server
Timestamp

08:44:55.511740 08:44:58.272015

...pleased to meet you MAIL From: Sender OK RCPT To: Recipient OK DATA Enter mail... Message body ACK

08:44:58.301312 08:44:59.122128 08:44:59.132027 08:44:59.954002 08:44:59.964150 08:45:01.071970 08:45:01.081284 08:45:02.292588 1.211304 s.

16.

EOM ACK

08:45:03.239825

0.930162 s.

18. 19.

Message accepted QUIT ACK

08:45:03.343266 08:45:04.390085

21.

...closing connection FIN, ACK FIN, ACK ACK ACK

08:45:04.444422

TCP packets SMTP packets

Figure 4.2: A SMTP-session sending an email over GPRS. The total time of this session is about 16 seconds. This is an example session, in another session more or less TCP acknowledgments could have been piggy-backed on the SMTP packets resulting in less or more packets transmitted respectively.

17

The total time of the session is around 16 seconds 2 . Packet number 14, the message body, is, in this case, 564 bytes (160 characters are sent, but Outlook adds a number of headers). The time from the previous acknowledgment is sent (packet 13) till packet 14 is received is 1.21 seconds. As can be seen in Figure 4.2 the time between packet 15 (an acknowledgment again) and packet 16 is also around 1 second, 0.93 seconds to be exact. This despite that packet 16 is the smallest SMTP packet sent; it contains only the end of message (5 bytes). Hence the size of the packet does not seem to have a big impact on time. The number of packets clearly does though. Since the SMS protocol uses only 8 packets to send a message (compared to 25 in this case) it is faster than SMTP, at least over the GPRS radio network.

4.4.3

Price and Cost

Yet if we look at the price the picture is quite dierent. Continuing to look at the session shown in Figure 4.2 and section A.1 a total of 2118 bytes are being sent and received. (Without the extra Outlook-headers 1714 bytes would have been transmitted.) Using the Swedish price for GPRS trac the charge for sending these 2 kbyte would be 0.24 kr. This is ve times cheaper than the 1.25 kr that is charged for SMS messages. Using the Danish example the price would be 0.04 Dkr instead of 0.40 Dkr. Consequently email is a better option than SMS for a user that has more time than money. Anyway, text messages are not used for urgent messages; if we want to be sure that our message is received instantly we make a phone call. Still for the GSM operators sending an email is more expensive than sending a SMS message. More resources are occupied for a longer time. So from their point of view SMS is preferred, at least as long as they can charge more for it.

4.5

Instant Messaging over GPRS

If the number of packets exchanged has such a big impact on the total time of the message sending, what about instant messaging (IM) then? Nokia 7650 and 3650 supports all the big IM protocols using two kinds of software. ICQ, AOL, MSN, and the open IM protocol Jabber is supported by IM+ [32], and IRC is supported by WirelessIRC [33]. Nokia is also involved Wireless Village [34] together with Ericsson and Motorola. It was formed to dene and promote a set of universal specications for mobile instant messaging and presence services
Sending an email over the Internet without using GPRS normally takes a couple of seconds.
2

18

and is supported by the IEEE industry standards and technology organization (IEEE-ISTO). Today most of the mobile phones also supports Java, making them able to run Java IM clients. Instant messaging is good for sending short messages, especially over a wireless link such as GPRS, since in principle only two messages are sent (the message itself and the acknowledgment). But this is once you have a session. Using Gabber, the GNOME Jabber client [30], around 24 TCP packages are sent during the setup phase. This is almost as many messages as when sending an email. But if you have a phone with IM support and you know you are going to send more than one message, denitely IM is a better choice than email. On the other hand, there are more phones with the possibility to send and receive email than phones with the possibility to download a IM client. At least today.

19

Chapter 5

Conclusions
There is a main dierence between SMS and other protocols developed for the Internet; it takes care not to send to many packages back and forth.

5.1

SMS is Here To Stay

Hence we conclude that SMS is here to stay. Mainly because it is a protocol developed for a radio network such as GSM and therefore is optimal for that use. When we adopt GPRS and start using SMS over GPRS it will take less time to send a SMS message, but obviously that does not change the usefulness of the protocol.

5.2

Prices Will Drop For SMS

At the same time we believe that prices will drop for SMS. This as a result of the fact that with GPRS the user anyway gets dierent alternatives on how to send text messages. The alternatives may not be exactly the same thing as SMS, but there is a dierence between only being able to take the car and being able to choose between taking the car, the subway, and the bike. As more and more users will be able to choose something other than SMS, and discover that it is, as we have seen, cheaper, it will probably be dicult for the GSM operators to keep up the prices. The operators would also want to encourage the users to use SMS instead of something else, since it gives a smaller load to the network (at least with the protocols we have today).

5.3

Operator Independent Alternatives To SMS

This is perhaps the most exciting conclusion. With GPRS it will be, as mentioned, easier to use a message service that doesnt depend on the oper20

ator. So perhaps we will see protocols developed that are economical when it comes to the number of messages exchanged, protocols that are designed with the GPRS network in mind, but for use in the Internet. Perhaps the Internet will start to adjust to GSM and GPRS and not only the other way around. Possibly more protocols will use UDP instead of TCP in the transport layer. (The reliable TCP is, as we have seen, not very economical with the number of messages it sends.) An email server such as Sendmail could support a smaller version of SMTP running over UDP for the use of mobile phones and other hand-held devices. We have the trivial le transfer protocol (TFTP) [13] used for devices that do not have space for the whole TCP stack (TFTP is implemented on UDP). Perhaps we will get TMTP , the trivial mail transfer protocol too?

5.4

Acknowledgment

At last, our own acknowledgment. We want to thank Gerald Q. Maguire and Maxim Teslenko for their valuable input when writing this report.

21

Bibliography
[1] Yi-Bing Lin and Imrich Chlamtac, Wireless and Mobile Network Architectures, John Wiley & Sons, 2001. [2] W. Richard Stevens, TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1, The Protocols, Addison Wesley, 1994. [3] James F. Kurose and Keith W. Ross, Computer Networking: A TopDown Approach Featuring the Internet, 2nd ed., Addison Wesley, 2003. [4] Jian Cai and David J. Goodman, General Packet Radio Service in GSM, Rutgers University, IEEE Communications Magazine, October 1997. [5] Christian Bettstetter et al., GSM Phase 2+ General Packet Radio Service GPRS: Architecture, Protocols, and Air Interface, IEEE Communications Surveys, http://www.comsoc.org/pubs/surveys, vol. 2 no. 3, 1999. [6] ETSI, Digital cellular telecommunications system (Phase 2+); Mobile Station - Base Station System (MS - BSS) Interface Channel Structures and Access Capabilities (3GPP TS 44.003 version 5.0.0 Release 5), http://www.etsi.org/, 2002. [7] ETSI, Digital cellular telecommunications system (Phase 2+); Technical realization of the Short Message Service (SMS) Point-to-Point (PP) (3GPP TS 03.40 version 7.5.0 Release 1998), http://www.etsi. org/, 2001. [8] ETSI, Digital cellular telecommunications system (Phase 2+); Mobile Station - Base Station System (MS - BSS) Interface Channel Structures and Access Capabilities (3GPP TS 44.003 version 5.0.0 Release 5), http://www.etsi.org/, 2002. [9] ETSI, Digital cellular telecommunications system (Phase 2+); Channel coding (3GPP TS 45.003 version 5.6.0 Release 5), http://www.etsi. org/, 2002. [10] Jonathan B. Postel, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, RFC 788, November 1981. 22

[11] J. Myers and M. Rose, Post Oce Protocol - Version 3, RFC 1939, May 1996. [12] C. Kalt, Internet Relay Chat: Client Protocol, RFC 2812, April 2000. [13] K. Sollins, The TFTP Protocol (Revision 2) , RFC 1350, July 1992. [14] Thierry Turletti, A brief Overview of the GSM Radio Interface, http: //tns-www.lcs.mit.edu/~turletti/gsm-overview/, Laboratory for Computer Science, Massachussets Institute of Technology, 1996. [15] GSM airlink information, http://www.bryte.net/gsm/airlink.asp. Accessed 20th April 2003. [16] Nortel Networks, A Comparison Between GERAN Packet-Switched Supplementary Services Using SIP and GSM Circuit-Switched Supplementary Services Using RIL3-CC, RIL3-MM, RIL3-RR, and DTAP, 2000. [17] Juan Li, S-72.260 Laboratory Works in Radiocommunications, Laboratory Exercise 3, BSS Radio Parameters, www.comlab.hut.fi/opetus/ 260/3v053.pdf, Communications Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology, 2001. [18] Hay Systems Ltd, SMS Connectivity, www.haysystems.com/ documents/HSL.SMPP.Interface.Brochure.pdf, 2002. [19] Silvan Mayer, Impact of GPRS on the Signalling of a GSMbased Network, Institute of Communication Networks and Computer Engineering, University of Stuttgart. [20] St ephane Piot, Security over GPRS, Master of Science in Telecommunications, www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~lsacks/tcomsmsc/projects/ pastproj/s_piot.pdf, University Collage London, 1998. [21] Logica, Why SMS if we have GPRS, www.totaltele.com/whitepaper/ docs/Logica_WhyhaveSMSifwehaveGPRS.pdf, 1999. [22] Thomas Kunz, Course notes GSM and GPRS, Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University. [23] Lars Pettersson, SMS and the PDU format, http://www.dreamfabric. com/sms/. [24] Protocols.com, Protocols directory, telephony, protocols.com/pbook/cellular.htm#SMS. http://www.

[25] Hannu H. Kari, Short Message Service (SMS) over GPRS radio as dened 04.11, http://www.cs.hut.fi/~hhk/GPRS/lect/sms/index. htm, 1998. 23

[26] Thomas Kunz, GSM and GPRS Course material course 94.536 Mobile Computing Systems, http://kunz-pc.sce.carleton.ca/ sce536/GSMandGPRS.pdf, Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University. [27] Sendmail, http://www.sendmail.org/ [28] Tcpdump, http://www.tcpdump.org. [29] Popa3d, http://www.openwall.com/popa3d/. [30] Gabber, http://gabber.sourceforge.net/. [31] Nokia, http://www.nokia.se/support/phones/ota.php. [32] IM+, Shape Services, http://www.shapeservices.de/eng/im/. [33] WirelessIRC, Mobileways, http://www.mobileways.de/. [34] Wireless Village, wirelessvillage/. http://www.openmobilealliance.org/

[35] TDC Mobil, http://www.tdcmobil.dk/.

24

Appendix A

Mail Sessions over GPRS

In this chapter the output of Tcpdump [28] in two example sessions is shown for reference. The rst session, the SMTP session, was described in detail in section 4.4.2, while the POP3 session is described more briey here.

A.1

A SMTP Session

This is the SMTP session shown in Figure 4.2.

A.1.1

Tcpdump output
S S . P P . P P P P P P P P . P . P P . P F F . . 3507904700:3507904700(0) win ... 1707044676:1707044676(0) ack ... ack 1 win 17520 (DF) 1:208(207) ack 1 win 16060 (DF) 1:10(9) ack 208 win 17313 (DF) ack 10 win 16060 (DF) 208:296(88) ack 10 win 16060 (DF) 10:34(24) ack 296 win 17225 (DF) 296:332(36) ack 34 win 16060 (DF) 34:54(20) ack 332 win 17189 (DF) 332:369(37) ack 54 win 16060 (DF) 54:60(6) ack 369 win 17152 (DF) 369:419(50) ack 60 win 16060 (DF) 60:624(564) ack 419 win 17102 (DF) ack 624 win 16060 (DF) 624:629(5) ack 419 win 17102 (DF) ack 629 win 16060 (DF) 419:475(56) ack 629 win 16060 (DF) 629:635(6) ack 475 win 17046 (DF) ack 635 win 16060 (DF) 475:509(34) ack 635 win 16060 (DF) 509:509(0) ack 635 win 16060 (DF) 635:635(0) ack 509 win 17012 (DF) ack 636 win 16060 (DF) ack 510 win 17012 (DF)

tcpdump: listening on eth0 08:44:49.681231 host-248-33.1459 > c-aea072d5.smtp: 08:44:49.681305 c-aea072d5.smtp > host-248-33.1459: 08:44:50.453740 host-248-33.1459 > c-aea072d5.smtp: 08:44:55.511740 c-aea072d5.smtp > host-248-33.1459: 08:44:58.272015 host-248-33.1459 > c-aea072d5.smtp: 08:44:58.272093 c-aea072d5.smtp > host-248-33.1459: 08:44:58.301312 c-aea072d5.smtp > host-248-33.1459: 08:44:59.122128 host-248-33.1459 > c-aea072d5.smtp: 08:44:59.132027 c-aea072d5.smtp > host-248-33.1459: 08:44:59.954002 host-248-33.1459 > c-aea072d5.smtp: 08:44:59.964150 c-aea072d5.smtp > host-248-33.1459: 08:45:01.071970 host-248-33.1459 > c-aea072d5.smtp: 08:45:01.081284 c-aea072d5.smtp > host-248-33.1459: 08:45:02.292588 host-248-33.1459 > c-aea072d5.smtp: 08:45:02.309663 c-aea072d5.smtp > host-248-33.1459: 08:45:03.239825 host-248-33.1459 > c-aea072d5.smtp: 08:45:03.259776 c-aea072d5.smtp > host-248-33.1459: 08:45:03.343266 c-aea072d5.smtp > host-248-33.1459: 08:45:04.390085 host-248-33.1459 > c-aea072d5.smtp: 08:45:04.409660 c-aea072d5.smtp > host-248-33.1459: 08:45:04.444422 c-aea072d5.smtp > host-248-33.1459: 08:45:04.469974 c-aea072d5.smtp > host-248-33.1459: 08:45:05.203487 host-248-33.1459 > c-aea072d5.smtp: 08:45:05.203565 c-aea072d5.smtp > host-248-33.1459: 08:45:05.289819 host-248-33.1459 > c-aea072d5.smtp: 25 packets received by filter 0 packets dropped by kernel

25

A.2
A.2.1

A POP3 Session
Receiving email using POP3

The commands used by Outlook Express (the POP3 client in this case) to communicate with the server (Popa3d [29] version 0.5.1-2) are in order: 1. USER to provide a username 2. PASS to provide a (plaintext) password 3. STAT to ask for the number of messages 4. LIST to ask for a listing of the messages (showing the sizes of each message) 5. RETR to retrieve a certain message 6. DELE to delete a certain message 7. QUIT to end the session Not all of these commands are necessary though, if we know for example we have at least one message waiting for us, we can issue RETR 1 directly after the password is provided, and retrieve message 1. The answer from the POP3 server starts either with a +OK for a positive response or a -ERR if it, for example, doesnt have the message we ask for [11]. Time and Amount of Data This session takes around 14 seconds. It is roughly the same time as the sending took so the conclusions drawn from the SMTP-example are still valid. The total amount of data is 2131 bytes, also that almost the same as in the SMTP-case.

26

A.2.2

Tcpdump output
S S . P P . P P . P P P P . P . P P . P P . P P P P P F F . . 3522969293:3522969293(0) win ... 1764157835:1764157835(0) ack ... ack 1 win 17520 (DF) 1:6(5) ack 1 win 1:11(10) ack 6 win 17515 (DF) ack 11 win 16060 (DF) 6:11(5) ack 11 win 16060 (DF) 11:24(13) ack 11 win 17510 (DF) ack 24 win 16060 (DF) 11:16(5) ack 24 win 16060 (DF) 24:30(6) ack 16 win 17505 (DF) 16:27(11) ack 30 win 16060 (DF) 30:36(6) ack 27 win 17494 (DF) ack 36 win 16060 (DF) 27:32(5) ack 36 win 16060 (DF) ack 32 win 17489 (DF) 32:42(10) ack 36 win 16060 (DF) 36:44(8) ack 42 win 17479 (DF) ack 44 win 16060 (DF) 42:47(5) ack 44 win 16060 (DF) 47:822(775) ack 44 win 16060 (DF) ack 822 win 16699 (DF) 822:825(3) ack 44 win 16060 (DF) 44:52(8) ack 825 win 16696 (DF) 825:830(5) ack 52 win 16060 (DF) 52:58(6) ack 830 win 16691 (DF) 830:835(5) ack 58 win 16060 (DF) 835:835(0) ack 58 win 16060 (DF) 58:58(0) ack 835 win 16686 (DF) ack 59 win 16060 (DF) ack 836 win 16686 (DF)

tcpdump: listening on eth0 08:45:49.753272 host-248-33.1460 > c-aea072d5.pop3: 08:45:49.753347 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:45:51.003082 host-248-33.1460 > c-aea072d5.pop3: 08:45:51.104331 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 16060 (DF) 08:45:52.184347 host-248-33.1460 > c-aea072d5.pop3: 08:45:52.184425 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:45:52.334146 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:45:53.034619 host-248-33.1460 > c-aea072d5.pop3: 08:45:53.059672 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:45:53.211165 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:45:54.334610 host-248-33.1460 > c-aea072d5.pop3: 08:45:54.341781 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:45:55.621289 host-248-33.1460 > c-aea072d5.pop3: 08:45:55.639644 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:45:55.691119 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:45:57.071072 host-248-33.1460 > c-aea072d5.pop3: 08:45:57.071141 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:45:58.321131 host-248-33.1460 > c-aea072d5.pop3: 08:45:58.339642 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:45:58.393744 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:45:58.394094 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:45:59.639768 host-248-33.1460 > c-aea072d5.pop3: 08:45:59.639841 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:46:00.884500 host-248-33.1460 > c-aea072d5.pop3: 08:46:00.891861 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:46:02.153141 host-248-33.1460 > c-aea072d5.pop3: 08:46:02.161907 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:46:02.162437 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:46:03.434301 host-248-33.1460 > c-aea072d5.pop3: 08:46:03.434370 c-aea072d5.pop3 > host-248-33.1460: 08:46:03.521080 host-248-33.1460 > c-aea072d5.pop3: 31 packets received by filter 0 packets dropped by kernel

27