General Packet Radio Service

GPRS History
Established by ETSI(European Telecommunications Standards Institute) GSM phase 1 --- 1992 GSM phase 2 --- 1996 GPRS begin in 1994 and published at the end of 1997

General Packet Radio Service

Packet switching GPRS is evolved from GSM by introducing two new core network nodes SGSN and GGSN Existing GSM nodes(BSS,MSC/VLR and HLR) are upgraded Concept foresees bit rates of nearly 170kb/s QoS Supportservice precedencedelay reliabilitymean throughputpeak throughput etc. QoS parameters

General Packet Radio Service

Several users can use the same channel simultaneously Always on line Radio resource allocation Charging is based on amount of transmitted data No need to access HLR for every GPRS packet Burst data transmission

GPRS Objectives
GPRS uses packet switched resource allocation Dynamic channel allocation 1 to 8 time slots Available resources shared by active users Up and down link channels reserved separately GPRS and circuit switched (GSM) services can use same time slots alternatively Efficient delivery of SMS over the GPRS air interface Connections with data networks IP network,X.25,GPRS own protocols

GPRS Development
Phase
Class
Point-to-Point Point-to-Multipoint Support GPRS and other GSM simultaneously Support GPRS and GSM network parallel Only GPRS Half-Duplex Full-Duplex

Multi-slot Type

Service type of GPRS

GPRS provides two types of services:
PTP (Point-To-Point)
Connectionless: IP Connection-oriented: X.25

PTM (Point-To-Multipoint)
Multicast Service (PTM-M) Group Call Service (PTM-G)

GPRS Applications
WWW FTP Telnet Chat E-mail Image Audio Video GPS(Global Positioning System)

GSM Architecture
MS(Mobile Station) BSS(Base Station Subsystem) BTS(Base Transceiver Station) BSC(Base Station Controller) MSC(Mobile Switching Center) PSTN(Public Switched Telephone Network) HLR(Home Location Register) VLR(Visitor Location Register) AUC(Authentication Center)

GSM Architecture

GPRS Architecture

Comparison between GPRS & Circuit-switched

GPRS Architecture

GPRS Components
GPRS support node(GSN)
Packet routing and transfer within PLMN(Public Land Mobile Network) Acts as a logical interface to external PDN(Packet Data Network) Maintains routing information used to tunnel the PDUs(Protocol Data Unit) to the SGSN currently serving the MS(Mobile Station) Delivery of packets to the MSs within its service area

Gateway GPRS support node(GGSN)

Serving GPRS support node(SGSN)

Mobile Transmission
SGSN(SGSN-S) encapsulates the packets transmitted by the MS and routes them to the appropriate GGSN(GGSN-S) Based on the examination of the destination address, packets are then routed to the GGSN-D through the packet data network The GGSN-D checks the routing context associated with the destination address and determines the SGSN-D and relevant tunneling information Each packet is then encapsulated and forwarded to the SGSN-D, which delivers it to the destination mobile

Simple example of transmission

Packet Data Transmission Scenario

Mobile-originated
MS to some LAN host

Mobile-terminated
Receive packet from some host when MS is in Home Public Land Mobile NetworkPLMN

Mobile-terminated
Receive packet from some host when MS is roaming at some Visited Public Land Mobile NetworkPLMN

Simple example of routing

GPRS Architecture
I nter -P LM N Back bone BG R In terne t

BS

B SC

S GSN Hos t GGS N Intr a-P LM N

MS MS MS

BS

Back bone

X.2 5

B SC BS S GSN S S7 BS MS VLR HL R

BS

BSC M SC PS TN

MS

BS MS MS BSC BS

Air interface Data Voice Voice and data SS 7 si gnaling

MS

BS

GPRS Coding Scheme

Best reliability : CS-1 No reliability : CS-4 Maximum data rate : 171.2Kbps(21.4Kbps x 8) with eight time slots

FDMA & TDMA

Mobility Management
Two encapsulation schemes:
Between GSNs Between MS and SGSN

Before MS sends data, MS has to attach to GPRS using an attachment procedure When moving to another SGSN(location update), GGSN and GR/HLR are informed about the new routing context

Mobility Management
State Diagram

GPRS Protocols
Sub-Network Dependent Convergence Protocol (SNDCP) maps a network-level protocol provides compression, segmentation and multiplexing of network-layer messages to a single virtual connection Logical Link Control (LLC) assures the reliable transfer of user data across a wireless network Base Station System GPRS Protocol (BSSGP) processes routing and QoS information uses the Frame Relay Q.922 core protocol GPRS Tunnel Protocol (GTP) tunnels the protocol data units between GSNs

GPRS Protocols
GPRS Mobility Management (GMM) handles roaming, authentication, and selection of encryption algorithms

Network Service maps BSSGP's service requests to the Frame Relay Q.922 Core Radio Link Control(RLC)/MAC Enable multiple MSs to share a common transmission medium which consist of several physical channels Physical Link Sublayer(PLL) Data coding, detection and correction Physical RF Sublayer(RFL) Perform the modulation and demodulation of the physical waveforms

Protocol Architecture

Air Interface Physical Layer

GPRS air interface protocol is concerned with communication between MS and BSS Physical Channel divided into Packet Data ChannelPDCHand Traffic Channel TCH PDCH --- Dedicated to Packet Data Traffic TCH --- GSM Voice or Data Traffic Allocation of TCHs and PDCHs is done dynamically according to theCapacity-ondemandprinciples

GPRS Architecture

GPRS Protocol Stack

GPRS Logical Channels

Packet Broadcast Control Channel(PBCCH)
Transmits system information to all GPRS terminals in a cell

Packet Common Control Channel(PCCCH)

Initiate packet transfers or respond to paging messages

Packet Traffic Channels(PTCH)

Channel resource allocation

GPRS Logical Channels(cont.)

Uplink

Downlink

HSCSD and EDGE

High-Speed Circuit-Switched DataHSCSD Multi-timeslot Using V42bis coding scheme can achieve 14.4Kbps Maximum data rate : 115.2Kbps(14.4Kbps * 8) Circuit switching Enhanced Data for GSM EvolutionEDGE Maximum data rate : 384kbps EDGE use the new Modulation Technique --- eight-phaseshift8PSK Support Packet switching and Circuit switching simultaneously

GPRS Glossary
ETSI(European Telecommunications Standards Institute) MS(Mobile Station) BSS(Base Station Subsystem) BTS(Base Transceiver Station) BSC(Base Station Controller) MSC(Mobile Switching Center) PSTN(Public Switched Telephone Network) HLR(Home Location Register) VLR(Visitor Location Register) AUC(Authentication Center) GPRS support node(GSN) Gateway GPRS support node(GGSN) Serving GPRS support node(SGSN) packet data network(PDN) Public Land Mobile NetworkPLMN Sub-Network Dependent Convergence Protocol (SNDCP) Logical Link Control (LLC) Base Station System GPRS Protocol (BSSGP) GPRS Tunnel Protocol (GTP) GPRS Mobility Management (GMM) Packet Data ChannelPDCH Traffic ChannelTCH Packet Broadcast Control Channel(PBCCH) Packet Common Control Channel(PCCCH) Packet Traffic Channels(PTCH) High-Speed Circuit-Switched DataHSCSD Enhanced Data for GSM EvolutionEDGE

Reference
J. Cai and DJ Goodman, General Packet Radio Service in GSM, IEEE Communications, vol. 35, no. 10, pp. 122-131, October 1997 G. Brasche and B. Walke, Concepts, Services, and Protocols of the New GSM Phase 2+ General Packet Radio Service, IEEE Communications, vol. 35, no. 8, pp. 94-104, Aug 1997 C. Bettstetter, GSM PHASE 2+ GENERAL PACKET RADIO SERVICE GPRS:ARCHITECTURE, PROTOCOLS AND AIR INTERFACE, IEEE Communications,1997