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An Introduction ToGPRS

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Contents

What is GPRS? GPRS Applications GPRS Myths GPRS Services Email – the killer application Accessing your company LAN

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Contents What is GPRS?

How the GPRS network works What devices you can use How does it perform What are your connectivity

options

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What is GPRS - Overview

GPRS provides mobile data services such as Internet and WAP access

It is also used to provide other commercial services such as MMS (Multi-Media-Messaging).

GPRS is an upgrade to a GSM network to enable mobile data and hence coverage is similar to it’s host GSM network.

GPRS is also a packet network - “Packet” means that, rather than have a continuous circuit assigned for the duration of a data call, small blocks (packets) of data are transmitted as required.

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GPRS – A “packet” network The advantage of being a packet network is that

you can have a permanent ‘always on’ connection, sending and receiving data when required.

Voice customers keep their channel for the duration of the

call

GPRS customers’ data is broken down into small “packets”, sent

when there is a free timeslot, and then re-assembled to recreate the

original data

Time

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GPRS – A “packet” network Other advantages are that you can use more or less

channels as your data requirements vary.

Voice customers keep their channel for the duration of the

call

If there is a lot of data – more channels can be used – three in

this case.

For small amounts of data “occasional” packets of data are

sent.

Time

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What is GPRS overview Your GPRS device will contain the name of

a physical connection (the APN) to the GPRS network e.g. It could be the word “Internet” for the Internet connection.

All your data is then routed to/from this connection.

GPRSNetwork Internet

Firewall

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What Devices Can You Use?

Mobile Phones Laptop computers, Data Cards Telemetry Smartphones

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Mobile PhonesMany phone users are using GPRS everyday for

WAP – Here the user should experience faster connections and page display – charged only for data transfer – not for length of time connected.

MMS – Multi-media messaging or Picture messaging is charged by the message – if messages are sent as emails then they are charged at the Internet access rates.

Internet – Many GPRS phones may be used with a PC or PDA to provide Internet access.

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Data Cards Data Cards are GPRS modems that can plug into a PC or

PDA to provide GPRS connectivity. They have their own GSM SIM card and their own account.

They can be purchased in PC-card format for laptops or CF-card format for compatible PDAs.

GPRS cards usually have voice capability but it is often disabled.

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Telemetry Telemetry refers to unattended computerised equipment

communicating using GPS – e.g. an ATM machine connecting with a bank or a whether station regularly reporting temperatures etc.

Telemetry users have a choice of using either a PC card. mobile phone with cable or a special ruggedised GPRS modem.

These have a serial or USB data connection, a power connection and an external aerial connection.

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Smartphones Smartphones combine the functionality of a PDA and a

Mobile phone in a single device. Many smartphones compromise the specification of either

device or both to fit in one unit. i.e. they are physically too large compared with a phone and the display is too small compared with a PDA.

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How fast is GPRS?

How fast will a GPRS network be? What is “Optimisation” What is “Latency” and how it affects you Can I Rely on GPRS for critical services?

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How Fast? The speed quoted on GPRS devices is usually their

maximum theoretical speed and will NEVER be achieved in real life.

The actual speed of a GPRS connection will vary depending on many factors such as device capability, signal strength, congestion.

Typical speeds with recent devices will be around 30Kbps on an un-congested network.

At times data flow may seem to stop or be limited to a few kbps.

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Optimisation To speed up internet access, many GPRS networks

compress web pages to reduce data flow. If you compare a GPRS loaded web page to a standard

web page you may notice that the graphics are worse quality where they have been further compressed – both resolution and colour depth.

The speed to load an ‘optimised’ page may be 4-5 less than a standard page.

If you use encryption to access your company data – the optimisation will not work!

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Latency GPRS networks delay data more than many other forms

of data networks. The round trip delay may be anything from 500-1000ms

– not a problem for POP email or web browsing but may disrupt LAN access or audio/video conferencing.

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Reliability

GPRS availability is not guaranteed – especially as voice traffic often takes precedence over data users.

As with GSM speech calls you should be able to use GPRS whilst moving – but this can often be problematical.

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Services for Business

Accessing Company LANs Internet and Corporate Email Private APN – dedicated, private connections

to a GPRS network

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LAN access

VPN – Setting up a “Virtual Private Network” using secure encryption software is possible over GPRS. Performance is poor because of the “latency” of the GPRS connection and relatively slow data speeds.

Email Redirection to Internet email server WAP/Webmail Proprietary secure Internet services

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Security Virtual Private Networking provides a method for

businesses to utilise encryption to form a secure connection to their LAN across the Internet.

VPN can be used over many different bearers (dial-up, broadband and GPRS).

Once authenticated users can use their standard office applications to view email and browse their Intranet.

CorporateNetwork

VPN Firewall

Secure “tunnel” through Internet

GPRS Network Internet

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GPRS Applications

Internet (POP) email Web Browsing VPN Telemetry

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WAP

WAP phones can connect using GPRS This provides a quicker/better user

experience than dialling up using GSM data. WAP may be a good device to view emails

when travelling – either from a WAP capable Internet email platform or a company email system.

Connections may be encrypted for high security applications.

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Internet Access

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Email The killer application

Email on the move

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Internet (POP) email

To get good performance for mobile email consider the following:

The POP protocol is often used to download emails to you PC – downloaded emails are then

The device used to send emails is an SMTP server – your ISPs SMTP server may not work over GPRS in which case use your mobile operators SMTP server.

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Web Browsing

Web Browsing

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GPRS Services

WAP, Web browsing, Instant messaging, VPN, Telemetry

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Internet

Private APN

CustomerNetworkGPRS

Network

Large mobile users benefit from having a private connection (leased line) to a GPRS network.

Some operators allow voice + data traffic + SMS to share the leased line