The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a new non-voice value added service that allows information to be sent and received across a mobile telephone network. It supplements today’s Circuit Switched Data and Short Message Service. GPRS is NOT related to GPS (the Global Positioning System), a similar acronym that is often used in mobile contexts.
Enabling GPRS on a GSM network requires the addition of two core modules, the Gateway GPRS Service Node (GGSN) and the Serving GPRS Service Node (SGSN). As the word Gateway in its name suggests, the GGSN acts as a gateway between the GPRS network and Public Data Networks such as IP and X.25. GGSNs also connect to other GPRS networks to facilitate GPRS roaming. The Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) provides packet routing to and from the SGSN service area for all users in that service area.
In addition to adding multiple GPRS nodes and a GPRS backbone, some other technical changes that need to be added to a GSM network to implement a GPRS service. These include the addition of Packet Control Units; often hosted in the Base Station Subsystems, mobility management to locate the GPRS Mobile Station, a new air interface for packet traffic, new security features such as ciphering and new GPRS specific signalling.
Friday, March 12, 2010
GPRS Applications
A wide range of corporate and consumer applications are enabled by non voice mobile services such as SMS and GPRS. This section will introduce those that are particularly suited to GPRS.
Chat: Chat can be distinguished from general information services because the source of the information is a person with chat whereas it tends to be from an Internet site for information services. The "information intensity" - the amount of information transferred per message tends to be lower with chat, where people are more likely to state opinions than factual data. In the same way as Internet chat groups have proven a very popular application of the Internet, groups of like-minded people - so called communities of interest - have begun to use nonvoice mobile services as a means to chat and communicate and discuss.
Because of its synergy with the Internet, GPRS would allow mobile users to participate fully in existing Internet chat groups rather than needing to set up their own groups that are dedicated to mobile users. Since the number of participants is an important factor determining the value of participation in the newsgroup, the use of GPRS here would be advantageous. GPRS will not however support point to multipoint services in its first phase, hindering the distribution of a single message to a group of people. As such, given the installed base of SMS capable devices, we would expect SMS to remain the primary bearer for chat applications in the foreseeable future, although experimentation with using GPRS is likely to commence sooner rather than later.
Textural and Visual Information: A wide range of content can be delivered to mobile phone users ranging from share prices, sports scores, weather, flight information, news headlines, prayer reminders, lottery results, jokes, horoscopes, traffic, location sensitive services and so on. This information need not necessarily be textual- it may be maps or graphs or other types of visual information.
The length of a short message of 160 characters suffices for delivering information when it is quantitative - such as a share price or a sports score or temperature. When the information is of a qualitative nature however, such as a horoscope or news story, 160 characters is too short other than to tantalize or annoy the information recipient since they receive the headline or forecast but little else of substance. As such, GPRS will likely be used for qualitative information services when end users have GPRS capable devices, but SMS will continue to be used for delivering most quantitative information services. Interestingly, chat applications are a form of qualitative information that may remain delivered using SMS, in order to limit people to brevity and reduce the incidence of spurious and irrelevant posts to the mailing list that are a common occurrence on Internet chat groups.
Still Images: Still images such as photographs, pictures, postcards, greeting cards and presentations, static web pages can be sent and received over the mobile network as they are across fixed telephone networks. It will be possible with GPRS to post images from a digital camera connected to a GPRS radio device directly to an Internet site, allowing near real-time desktop publishing.
Moving Images: Over time, the nature and form of mobile communication is getting less textual and more visual. The wireless industry is moving from text messages to icons and picture messages to photographs and blueprints to video messages and movie previews being downloaded and on to full blown movie watching via data streaming on a mobile device.
Sending moving images in a mobile environment has several vertical market applications including monitoring parking lots or building sites for intruders or thieves, and sending images of patients from an ambulance to a hospital. Videoconferencing applications, in which teams of distributed sales people can have a regular sales meeting without having to go to a particular physical location, is another application for moving images.
Web Browsing: Using Circuit Switched Data for web browsing has never been an enduring application for mobile users. Because of the slow speed of Circuit Switched Data, it takes a long time for data to arrive from the Internet server to the browser. Alternatively, users switch off the images and just access the text on the web, and end up with difficult to read text layouts on screens that are difficult to read from. As such, mobile Internet browsing is better suited to GPRS.
Document Sharing/Collaborative Working: Mobile data facilitates document sharing and remote collaborative working. This lets different people in different places work on the same document at the same time. Multimedia applications combining voice, text, pictures and images can even be envisaged. These kinds of applications could be useful in any problem solving exercise such as fire fighting, combat to plan the route of attack, medical treatment, advertising copy setting, architecture, journalism and so on. Even comments on which resort to book a holiday at could benefit from document sharing to save everyone having to visit the travel agent to make a decision. Anywhere somebody can benefit from having and being able to comment on a visual depiction of a situation or matter, such collaborative working can be useful. By providing sufficient bandwidth, GPRS facilitates multimedia applications such as document sharing.
Audio: Despite many improvements in the quality of voice calls on mobile networks such as Enhanced Full Rate (EFR), they are still not broadcast quality. There are scenarios where journalists or undercover police officers with portable professional broadcast quality microphones and amplifiers capture interviews with people or radio reports dictated by themselves and need to send this information back to their radio or police station. Leaving a mobile phone on, or dictating to a mobile phone, would simply not give sufficient voice quality to allow that transmission to be broadcast or analyzed for the purposes of background noise analysis or voice printing, where the speech autograph is taken and matched against those in police storage. Since even short voice clips occupy large file sizes, GPRS or other high speed mobile data services are needed.
Job Dispatch: Nonvoice mobile services can be used to assign and communicate new jobs from office-based staff to mobile field staff. Customers typically telephone a call center whose staff take the call and categorize it. Those calls requiring a visit by field sales or service representative can then be escalated to those mobile workers. Job dispatch applications can optionally be combined with vehicle positioning applications - such that the nearest available suitable personnel can be deployed to serve a customer. GSM nonvoice services can be used not only to send the job out, but also as a means for the service engineer or sales person can keep the office informed of progress towards meeting the customer's requirement. The remote worker can send in a status message such as "Job 1234 complete, on my way to 1235".
Corporate Email: With up to half of employees typically away from their desks at any one time, it is important for them to keep in touch with the office by extending the use of corporate email systems beyond an employee's office PC. Corporate email systems run on Local Area computer Networks (LAN) and include Microsoft Mail, Outlook, Outlook Express, Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes and Lotus cc:Mail.
Since GPRS capable devices will be more widespread in corporations than amongst the general mobile phone user community, there are likely to be more corporate email applications using GPRS than Internet email ones whose target market is more general.
Internet Email: Internet email services come in the form of a gateway service where the messages are not stored, or mailbox services in which messages are stored. In the case of gateway services, the wireless email platform simply translates the message from SMTP, the Internet email protocol, into SMS and sends to the SMS Center. In the case of mailbox email services, the emails are actually stored and the user gets a notification on their mobile phone and can then retrieve the full email by dialing in to collect it, forward it and so on.
Upon receiving a new email, most Internet email users do not currently get notified of this fact on their mobile phone. When they are out of the office, they have to dial in speculatively and periodically to check their mailbox contents. However, by linking Internet email with an alert mechanism such as SMS or GPRS, users can be notified when a new email is received.
Vehicle Positioning: This application integrates satellite positioning systems that tell people where they are with nonvoice mobile services that let people tell others where they are. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a free-to-use global network of 24 satellites run by the US Department of Defense. Anyone with a GPS receiver can receive their satellite position and thereby find out where they are. Vehicle positioning applications can be used to deliver several services including remote vehicle diagnostics, ad-hoc stolen vehicle tracking and new rental car fleet tariffs.
The Short Message Service is ideal for sending Global Positioning System (GPS) position information such as longitude, latitude, bearing and altitude. GPS coordinates are typically about 60 characters in length. GPRS could alternatively be used.
Remote LAN Access:
When mobile workers are away from their desks, they clearly need to connect to the Local Area Network in their office. Remote LAN applications encompasses access to any applications that an employee would use when sitting at their desk, such as access to the intranet, their corporate email services such as Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes and to database applications running on Oracle or Sybase or whatever. The mobile terminal such as handheld or laptop computer has the same software programs as the desktop on it, or cut down client versions of the applications accessible through the corporate LAN. This application area is therefore likely to be a conglomeration of remote access to several different information types - email, intranet, databases. This information may all be accessible through web browsing tools, or require proprietary software applications on the mobile device. The ideal bearer for Remote LAN Access depends on the amount of data being transmitted, but the speed and latency of GPRS make it ideal.
File Transfer:
As this generic term suggests, file transfer applications encompass any form of downloading sizeable data across the mobile network. This data could be a presentation document for a traveling salesperson, an appliance manual for a service engineer or a software application such as Adobe Acrobat Reader to read documents. The source of this information could be one of the Internet communication methods such as FTP (File Transfer Protocol), telnet, http or Java - or from a proprietary database or legacy platform. Irrespective of source and type of file being transferred, this kind of application tends to be bandwidth intensive. It therefore requires a high speed mobile data service such as GPRS, EDGE or UMTS to run satisfactorily across a mobile network.
Home Automation: Home automation applications combine remote security with remote control. Basically, you can monitor your home from wherever you are - on the road, on holiday, or at the office. If your burglar alarm goes off, not only do you get alerted, but you get to go live and see who are perpetrators are and perhaps even lock them in. Not only can you see things at home, but you can do things too. You can program your video, switch your oven on so that the preheating is complete by the time you arrive home (traffic jams permitting) and so on. Your GPRS capable mobile phone really does become like the remote control devices we use today for our television, video, hi-fi and so on. As the Internet Protocol (IP) will soon be everywhere - not just in mobile phones because of GPRS but all manner of household appliances and in every machine - these devices can be addressed and instructed. A key enabler for home automation applications will be Bluetooth, which allows disparate devices to interwork.
GPRS Features
GPRS has several unique features which can be summarized as:
Immediacy:
GPRS facilitates instant connections whereby information can be sent or received immediately as the need arises. No dial-up modem connection is necessary. This is why GPRS users are sometimes referred to be as being "always connected". Immediacy is one of the advantages of GPRS (and SMS) when compared to Circuit Switched Data. High immediacy is a very important feature for time critical applications such as remote credit card authorization where it would be unacceptable to keep the customer waiting for even thirty extra seconds.
Speed: Theoretical maximum speeds of up to 171.2 kilobits per second (kbps) are achievable with GPRS using all eight timeslots at the same time. This is about three times as fast as the data transmission speeds possible over today’s fixed telecommunications networks and ten times as fast as current Circuit Switched Data services on GSM networks.
Service Access:
To use GPRS, users specifically need:
Chat: Chat can be distinguished from general information services because the source of the information is a person with chat whereas it tends to be from an Internet site for information services. The "information intensity" - the amount of information transferred per message tends to be lower with chat, where people are more likely to state opinions than factual data. In the same way as Internet chat groups have proven a very popular application of the Internet, groups of like-minded people - so called communities of interest - have begun to use nonvoice mobile services as a means to chat and communicate and discuss.
Because of its synergy with the Internet, GPRS would allow mobile users to participate fully in existing Internet chat groups rather than needing to set up their own groups that are dedicated to mobile users. Since the number of participants is an important factor determining the value of participation in the newsgroup, the use of GPRS here would be advantageous. GPRS will not however support point to multipoint services in its first phase, hindering the distribution of a single message to a group of people. As such, given the installed base of SMS capable devices, we would expect SMS to remain the primary bearer for chat applications in the foreseeable future, although experimentation with using GPRS is likely to commence sooner rather than later.
Textural and Visual Information: A wide range of content can be delivered to mobile phone users ranging from share prices, sports scores, weather, flight information, news headlines, prayer reminders, lottery results, jokes, horoscopes, traffic, location sensitive services and so on. This information need not necessarily be textual- it may be maps or graphs or other types of visual information.
The length of a short message of 160 characters suffices for delivering information when it is quantitative - such as a share price or a sports score or temperature. When the information is of a qualitative nature however, such as a horoscope or news story, 160 characters is too short other than to tantalize or annoy the information recipient since they receive the headline or forecast but little else of substance. As such, GPRS will likely be used for qualitative information services when end users have GPRS capable devices, but SMS will continue to be used for delivering most quantitative information services. Interestingly, chat applications are a form of qualitative information that may remain delivered using SMS, in order to limit people to brevity and reduce the incidence of spurious and irrelevant posts to the mailing list that are a common occurrence on Internet chat groups.
Still Images: Still images such as photographs, pictures, postcards, greeting cards and presentations, static web pages can be sent and received over the mobile network as they are across fixed telephone networks. It will be possible with GPRS to post images from a digital camera connected to a GPRS radio device directly to an Internet site, allowing near real-time desktop publishing.
Moving Images: Over time, the nature and form of mobile communication is getting less textual and more visual. The wireless industry is moving from text messages to icons and picture messages to photographs and blueprints to video messages and movie previews being downloaded and on to full blown movie watching via data streaming on a mobile device.
Sending moving images in a mobile environment has several vertical market applications including monitoring parking lots or building sites for intruders or thieves, and sending images of patients from an ambulance to a hospital. Videoconferencing applications, in which teams of distributed sales people can have a regular sales meeting without having to go to a particular physical location, is another application for moving images.
Web Browsing: Using Circuit Switched Data for web browsing has never been an enduring application for mobile users. Because of the slow speed of Circuit Switched Data, it takes a long time for data to arrive from the Internet server to the browser. Alternatively, users switch off the images and just access the text on the web, and end up with difficult to read text layouts on screens that are difficult to read from. As such, mobile Internet browsing is better suited to GPRS.
Document Sharing/Collaborative Working: Mobile data facilitates document sharing and remote collaborative working. This lets different people in different places work on the same document at the same time. Multimedia applications combining voice, text, pictures and images can even be envisaged. These kinds of applications could be useful in any problem solving exercise such as fire fighting, combat to plan the route of attack, medical treatment, advertising copy setting, architecture, journalism and so on. Even comments on which resort to book a holiday at could benefit from document sharing to save everyone having to visit the travel agent to make a decision. Anywhere somebody can benefit from having and being able to comment on a visual depiction of a situation or matter, such collaborative working can be useful. By providing sufficient bandwidth, GPRS facilitates multimedia applications such as document sharing.
Audio: Despite many improvements in the quality of voice calls on mobile networks such as Enhanced Full Rate (EFR), they are still not broadcast quality. There are scenarios where journalists or undercover police officers with portable professional broadcast quality microphones and amplifiers capture interviews with people or radio reports dictated by themselves and need to send this information back to their radio or police station. Leaving a mobile phone on, or dictating to a mobile phone, would simply not give sufficient voice quality to allow that transmission to be broadcast or analyzed for the purposes of background noise analysis or voice printing, where the speech autograph is taken and matched against those in police storage. Since even short voice clips occupy large file sizes, GPRS or other high speed mobile data services are needed.
Job Dispatch: Nonvoice mobile services can be used to assign and communicate new jobs from office-based staff to mobile field staff. Customers typically telephone a call center whose staff take the call and categorize it. Those calls requiring a visit by field sales or service representative can then be escalated to those mobile workers. Job dispatch applications can optionally be combined with vehicle positioning applications - such that the nearest available suitable personnel can be deployed to serve a customer. GSM nonvoice services can be used not only to send the job out, but also as a means for the service engineer or sales person can keep the office informed of progress towards meeting the customer's requirement. The remote worker can send in a status message such as "Job 1234 complete, on my way to 1235".
Corporate Email: With up to half of employees typically away from their desks at any one time, it is important for them to keep in touch with the office by extending the use of corporate email systems beyond an employee's office PC. Corporate email systems run on Local Area computer Networks (LAN) and include Microsoft Mail, Outlook, Outlook Express, Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes and Lotus cc:Mail.
Since GPRS capable devices will be more widespread in corporations than amongst the general mobile phone user community, there are likely to be more corporate email applications using GPRS than Internet email ones whose target market is more general.
Internet Email: Internet email services come in the form of a gateway service where the messages are not stored, or mailbox services in which messages are stored. In the case of gateway services, the wireless email platform simply translates the message from SMTP, the Internet email protocol, into SMS and sends to the SMS Center. In the case of mailbox email services, the emails are actually stored and the user gets a notification on their mobile phone and can then retrieve the full email by dialing in to collect it, forward it and so on.
Upon receiving a new email, most Internet email users do not currently get notified of this fact on their mobile phone. When they are out of the office, they have to dial in speculatively and periodically to check their mailbox contents. However, by linking Internet email with an alert mechanism such as SMS or GPRS, users can be notified when a new email is received.
Vehicle Positioning: This application integrates satellite positioning systems that tell people where they are with nonvoice mobile services that let people tell others where they are. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a free-to-use global network of 24 satellites run by the US Department of Defense. Anyone with a GPS receiver can receive their satellite position and thereby find out where they are. Vehicle positioning applications can be used to deliver several services including remote vehicle diagnostics, ad-hoc stolen vehicle tracking and new rental car fleet tariffs.
The Short Message Service is ideal for sending Global Positioning System (GPS) position information such as longitude, latitude, bearing and altitude. GPS coordinates are typically about 60 characters in length. GPRS could alternatively be used.
Remote LAN Access:
When mobile workers are away from their desks, they clearly need to connect to the Local Area Network in their office. Remote LAN applications encompasses access to any applications that an employee would use when sitting at their desk, such as access to the intranet, their corporate email services such as Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes and to database applications running on Oracle or Sybase or whatever. The mobile terminal such as handheld or laptop computer has the same software programs as the desktop on it, or cut down client versions of the applications accessible through the corporate LAN. This application area is therefore likely to be a conglomeration of remote access to several different information types - email, intranet, databases. This information may all be accessible through web browsing tools, or require proprietary software applications on the mobile device. The ideal bearer for Remote LAN Access depends on the amount of data being transmitted, but the speed and latency of GPRS make it ideal.
File Transfer:
As this generic term suggests, file transfer applications encompass any form of downloading sizeable data across the mobile network. This data could be a presentation document for a traveling salesperson, an appliance manual for a service engineer or a software application such as Adobe Acrobat Reader to read documents. The source of this information could be one of the Internet communication methods such as FTP (File Transfer Protocol), telnet, http or Java - or from a proprietary database or legacy platform. Irrespective of source and type of file being transferred, this kind of application tends to be bandwidth intensive. It therefore requires a high speed mobile data service such as GPRS, EDGE or UMTS to run satisfactorily across a mobile network.
Home Automation: Home automation applications combine remote security with remote control. Basically, you can monitor your home from wherever you are - on the road, on holiday, or at the office. If your burglar alarm goes off, not only do you get alerted, but you get to go live and see who are perpetrators are and perhaps even lock them in. Not only can you see things at home, but you can do things too. You can program your video, switch your oven on so that the preheating is complete by the time you arrive home (traffic jams permitting) and so on. Your GPRS capable mobile phone really does become like the remote control devices we use today for our television, video, hi-fi and so on. As the Internet Protocol (IP) will soon be everywhere - not just in mobile phones because of GPRS but all manner of household appliances and in every machine - these devices can be addressed and instructed. A key enabler for home automation applications will be Bluetooth, which allows disparate devices to interwork.
GPRS Features
GPRS has several unique features which can be summarized as:
Immediacy:
GPRS facilitates instant connections whereby information can be sent or received immediately as the need arises. No dial-up modem connection is necessary. This is why GPRS users are sometimes referred to be as being "always connected". Immediacy is one of the advantages of GPRS (and SMS) when compared to Circuit Switched Data. High immediacy is a very important feature for time critical applications such as remote credit card authorization where it would be unacceptable to keep the customer waiting for even thirty extra seconds.
Speed: Theoretical maximum speeds of up to 171.2 kilobits per second (kbps) are achievable with GPRS using all eight timeslots at the same time. This is about three times as fast as the data transmission speeds possible over today’s fixed telecommunications networks and ten times as fast as current Circuit Switched Data services on GSM networks.
Service Access:
To use GPRS, users specifically need:
mobile phone or terminal that supports GPRS (existing GSM phones do NOT support GPRS)
use of GPRS must be enabled for that user. Automatic access to the GPRS may be allowed by some mobile network operators, others will require a specific opt-in
destination to send or receive information through GPRS. Whereas with SMS this was often another mobile phone, in the case of GPRS, it is likely to be an Internet address, since GPRS is designed to make the Internet fully available to mobile users for the first time. From day one, GPRS users can access any web page or other Internet applications- providing an immediate critical mass of uses.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
WHAT IS 3G?
The mobile communications industry has evolved in three stages:
Three generations of mobile phones have emerged so far, each successive generation more reliable and flexible than the last:
With each new generation of technology, the services which can de deployed on them becomes more and more wide ranging and truly limited only by imagination. We are reaching that stage with 3G.
During the first and second generations different regions of the world pursued different mobile phone standards, but are converging to a common standard for mobile multimedia called Third Generation (3G) that is based on CDMA technology. Europe pursued NMT and TACS for analog and GSM for digital, North America pursued AMPS for analog and a mix of TDMA, CDMA and GSM for digital. 3G will bring these incompatible standards together, and the aim of this paper is to discuss the optimal migration path for mobile network operators to get from their existing 2G digital systems to the 3G world.
The Third Generation of mobile communications systems will soon by implemented. Following on the heals of analog and digital technology, the Third Generation will be digital mobile multimedia offering broadband mobile communications with voice, video, graphics, audio and other information.
Three generations of mobile phones have emerged so far, each successive generation more reliable and flexible than the last:
Analog: You could only easily use analogue cellular to make voice calls, and typically only in any one country.
Multimedia services add high speed data transfer to mobile devices, allowing new video, audio and other applications through mobile phones- allowing music and television and the Internet to be accessed through a mobile terminal.
With each new generation of technology, the services which can de deployed on them becomes more and more wide ranging and truly limited only by imagination. We are reaching that stage with 3G.
During the first and second generations different regions of the world pursued different mobile phone standards, but are converging to a common standard for mobile multimedia called Third Generation (3G) that is based on CDMA technology. Europe pursued NMT and TACS for analog and GSM for digital, North America pursued AMPS for analog and a mix of TDMA, CDMA and GSM for digital. 3G will bring these incompatible standards together, and the aim of this paper is to discuss the optimal migration path for mobile network operators to get from their existing 2G digital systems to the 3G world.
The Third Generation of mobile communications systems will soon by implemented. Following on the heals of analog and digital technology, the Third Generation will be digital mobile multimedia offering broadband mobile communications with voice, video, graphics, audio and other information.
3G Features
Packet Everywhere: With Third Generation (3G), the information is split into separate but related “packets” before being transmitted and reassembled at the receiving end. Packet switching is similar to a jigsaw puzzle- the image that the puzzle represents is divided into pieces at the manufacturing factory and put into a plastic bag. During transportation of the now boxed jigsaw from the factory to the end user, the pieces get jumbled up. When the recipient empties the bag with all the pieces, they are reassembled to form the original image. All the pieces are all related and fit together, but the way they are transported and assembled varies.
Packet switched data formats are much more common than their circuit switched counterparts. Other examples of packet-based data standards include TCP/IP, X.25, Frame Relay and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). As such, whilst packet switching is new to the GSM world, it is well established elsewhere. In the mobile world, CDPD (Cellular Digital Packet Data), PDCP (Personal Digital Cellular Packet), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and wireless X.25 technologies have been in operation for several years. X.25 is the international public access packet radio data network standard.
Internet Everywhere: The World Wide Web is becoming the primary communications interface- people access the Internet for entertainment and information collection, the intranet for accessing company information and connecting with colleagues and the extranet for accessing customers and suppliers. These are all derivatives of the World Wide Web aimed at connecting different communities of interest. There is a trend away from storing information locally in specific software packages on PCs to remotely on the Internet. When you want to check your schedule or contacts, instead of using a software package such as “Act!”, you go onto the Internet site such as a portal. Hence, web browsing is a very important application for packet data.
High Speed: Speeds of up to 2 Megabits per second (Mbps) are achievable with Third Generation (3G). The data transmission rates will depend upon the environment the call is being made in- it is only indoors and in stationary environments that these types of data rates will be available. For high mobility, data rates of 144 kbps are expected to be available- this is only about three times the speed of today’s fixed telecoms modems.
New Applications: Third Generation (3G) facilitates several new applications that have not previously been readily available over mobile networks due to the limitations in data transmission speeds. These applications range from Web Browsing to file transfer to Home Automation- the ability to remotely access and control in-house appliances and machines. Because of the bandwidth increase, these applications will be even more easily available with 3G than they were previously with interim technologies such as GPRS.
To use Third Generation (3G), users specifically need:
These user requirements are not expected to change much for the meaningful use of 3G.
Packet switched data formats are much more common than their circuit switched counterparts. Other examples of packet-based data standards include TCP/IP, X.25, Frame Relay and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). As such, whilst packet switching is new to the GSM world, it is well established elsewhere. In the mobile world, CDPD (Cellular Digital Packet Data), PDCP (Personal Digital Cellular Packet), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and wireless X.25 technologies have been in operation for several years. X.25 is the international public access packet radio data network standard.
Internet Everywhere: The World Wide Web is becoming the primary communications interface- people access the Internet for entertainment and information collection, the intranet for accessing company information and connecting with colleagues and the extranet for accessing customers and suppliers. These are all derivatives of the World Wide Web aimed at connecting different communities of interest. There is a trend away from storing information locally in specific software packages on PCs to remotely on the Internet. When you want to check your schedule or contacts, instead of using a software package such as “Act!”, you go onto the Internet site such as a portal. Hence, web browsing is a very important application for packet data.
High Speed: Speeds of up to 2 Megabits per second (Mbps) are achievable with Third Generation (3G). The data transmission rates will depend upon the environment the call is being made in- it is only indoors and in stationary environments that these types of data rates will be available. For high mobility, data rates of 144 kbps are expected to be available- this is only about three times the speed of today’s fixed telecoms modems.
New Applications: Third Generation (3G) facilitates several new applications that have not previously been readily available over mobile networks due to the limitations in data transmission speeds. These applications range from Web Browsing to file transfer to Home Automation- the ability to remotely access and control in-house appliances and machines. Because of the bandwidth increase, these applications will be even more easily available with 3G than they were previously with interim technologies such as GPRS.
To use Third Generation (3G), users specifically need:
A mobile phone or terminal that supports Third Generation (3G)
Use of Third Generation (3G) must be enabled for that user.Automatic access to the 3G may be allowed by some mobile network operators, others will charge a monthly subscription and require a specific opt-in to use the service as they do with other nonvoice mobile services
A destination to send or receive information through Third Generation (3G). From day one, Third Generation (3G) users can access any web page or other Internet applications- providing an immediate critical mass of users.
These user requirements are not expected to change much for the meaningful use of 3G.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
WHAT IS CDMA?
CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access) refers to any of several protocols used in so-called second-generation (2G) and third-generation (3G) wireless communications. As the term implies, CDMA is a form of multiplexing, which allows numerous signals to occupy a single transmission channel, optimizing the use of available bandwidth. The technology is used in ultra-high-frequency (UHF) cellular telephone systems in the 800-MHz and 1.9-GHz bands.
CDMA employs analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) in combination with spread spectrum technology. Audio input is first digitized into binary elements. The frequency of the transmitted signal is then made to vary according to a defined pattern (code), so it can be intercepted only by a receiver whose frequency response is programmed with the same code, so it follows exactly along with the transmitter frequency. There are trillions of possible frequency-sequencing codes, which enhances privacy and makes cloning difficult.
The CDMA channel is nominally 1.23 MHz wide. CDMA networks use a scheme called soft handoff, which minimizes signal breakup as a handset passes from one cell to another. The combination of digital and spread-spectrum modes supports several times as many signals per unit bandwidth as analog modes. CDMA is compatible with other cellular technologies; this allows for nationwide roaming.
The original CDMA standard, also known as CDMA One and still common in cellular telephones in the U.S., offers a transmission speed of only up to 14.4 Kbps in its single channel form and up to 115 Kbps in an eight-channel form. CDMA2000 and wideband CDMA deliver data many times faster.
Since the development of CDMA technology there has been many new releases and platforms. The original CDMA is now referred to as CDMAone. Several different variants of CDMA technology been developed continuously improving quality and data transfer speeds. Third generation CDMA technology, commonly referred to as CDMA2000 encompasses a wide variety of different standards, each continually improving upon the first including; 1X EV, 1XEV-DO, and MC 3X. CDMA2000 is the current standard used by most US carriers today. The first release of CDMA2000 was refereed to as either 3G1X, 1XRTT, or 1X. Designed to provide data transmissions of ten times faster then the previous technology and double the voice capacity of CDMAone.
As stated above, Verizon Wireless operates on the CDMA network. Depending on the phone you have and its capabilities you will notice symbols in the default screen of your phone reading either 1X, 1XEV-DO or some variation of the two. This symbol defines the CDMA2000 standards your phone is operating on. Newer phones will display EV or EV-DO using the newer faster, more reliable CDMA technology.
Enhanced data transfer provides for the new technologies released by companies like Verizon. Including data transfer for files, music, games and the Internet.
WCDMA technology, standing for Wideband Code Division Multiple access, is the most developed and advanced form of the third generation CDMA2000 technology. It encompasses higher data transfer rates and provides wireless connections in markets world wide. Many existing GSM 2G (GSM/GPRS) operators have slowly began the switch to using WCDMA technology.
Qualcomm the original developer of CDMA owns patents of this technology. They have granted royalty-bearing licenses to over 100 network operators.
CDMA employs analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) in combination with spread spectrum technology. Audio input is first digitized into binary elements. The frequency of the transmitted signal is then made to vary according to a defined pattern (code), so it can be intercepted only by a receiver whose frequency response is programmed with the same code, so it follows exactly along with the transmitter frequency. There are trillions of possible frequency-sequencing codes, which enhances privacy and makes cloning difficult.
The CDMA channel is nominally 1.23 MHz wide. CDMA networks use a scheme called soft handoff, which minimizes signal breakup as a handset passes from one cell to another. The combination of digital and spread-spectrum modes supports several times as many signals per unit bandwidth as analog modes. CDMA is compatible with other cellular technologies; this allows for nationwide roaming.
The original CDMA standard, also known as CDMA One and still common in cellular telephones in the U.S., offers a transmission speed of only up to 14.4 Kbps in its single channel form and up to 115 Kbps in an eight-channel form. CDMA2000 and wideband CDMA deliver data many times faster.
Since the development of CDMA technology there has been many new releases and platforms. The original CDMA is now referred to as CDMAone. Several different variants of CDMA technology been developed continuously improving quality and data transfer speeds. Third generation CDMA technology, commonly referred to as CDMA2000 encompasses a wide variety of different standards, each continually improving upon the first including; 1X EV, 1XEV-DO, and MC 3X. CDMA2000 is the current standard used by most US carriers today. The first release of CDMA2000 was refereed to as either 3G1X, 1XRTT, or 1X. Designed to provide data transmissions of ten times faster then the previous technology and double the voice capacity of CDMAone.
As stated above, Verizon Wireless operates on the CDMA network. Depending on the phone you have and its capabilities you will notice symbols in the default screen of your phone reading either 1X, 1XEV-DO or some variation of the two. This symbol defines the CDMA2000 standards your phone is operating on. Newer phones will display EV or EV-DO using the newer faster, more reliable CDMA technology.
Enhanced data transfer provides for the new technologies released by companies like Verizon. Including data transfer for files, music, games and the Internet.
WCDMA technology, standing for Wideband Code Division Multiple access, is the most developed and advanced form of the third generation CDMA2000 technology. It encompasses higher data transfer rates and provides wireless connections in markets world wide. Many existing GSM 2G (GSM/GPRS) operators have slowly began the switch to using WCDMA technology.
Qualcomm the original developer of CDMA owns patents of this technology. They have granted royalty-bearing licenses to over 100 network operators.
GSM Applications
Access control devices: Now access control devices can communicate with servers and security staff through SMS messaging. Complete log of transaction is available at the head-office Server instantly without any wiring involved and device can instantly alert security personnel on their mobile phone in case of any problem. RaviRaj Technologies is introducing this technology in all Fingerprint Access control and time attendance products. You can achive high security any reliability.
Transaction terminals: EDC machines, POS terminals can use SMS messaging to confirm transactions from central servers. The main benefit is that central server can be anywhere in the world. Today you need local servers in every city with multiple telephone lines. You save huge infrastructure costs as well as per transaction cost.
Supply Chain Management: Today SCM require huge IT infrastructure with leased lines, networking devices, data centre, workstations and still you have large downtimes and high costs. You can do all this at a fraction of the cost with GSM M2M technology. A central server in your head office with GSM capability is the answer, you can receive instant transaction data from all your branch offices, warehouses and business associates with nil downtime and low cost.
What applications is suitable for GSM communication?
If your application needs one or more of the following features, GSM will be more cost-effective then other communication systems.
Short Data Size: You data size per transaction should be small like 1-3 lines. e.g. banking transaction data, sales/purchase data, consignment tracking data, updates. These small but important transaction data can be sent through SMS messaging which cost even less then a local telephone call or sometimes free of cost worldwide. Hence with negligible cost you are able to send critical information to your head office located anywhere in the world from multiple points. You can also transfer faxes, large data through GSM but this will be as or more costly compared to landline networks.
Multiple Remote Data Collection Points: If you have multiple data collections points situated all over your city, state, country or worldwide you will benefit the most. The data can be sent from multiple points like your branch offices, business associates, warehouses, agents with devices like GSM modems connected to PCs, GSM electronic terminals and Mobile phones. Many a times some places like warehouses may be situated at remote location may not have landline or internet but you will have GSM network still available easily.
High Uptime: If your business require high uptime and availability GSM is best suitable for you as GSM mobile networks have high uptime compared to landline, internet and other communication mediums. Also in situations where you expect that someone may sabotage your communication systems by cutting wires or taping landlines, you can depend on GSM wireless communication.
Large Transaction Volumes: GSM SMS messaging can handle large number of transaction in a very short time. You can receive large number SMS messages on your server like e-mails without internet connectivity. E-mails normally get delayed a lot but SMS messages are almost instantaneous for instant transactions. consider situation like shop owners doing credit card transaction with GSM technology instead of conventional landlines. many a time you find local transaction servers busy as these servers use multiple telephone lines to take care of multiple transactions, whereas one GSM connection is enough to handle hundreds of transaction per minute.
Mobility, Quick installation: GSM technology allow mobility, GSM terminals, modems can be just picked and installed at other location unlike telephone lines. Also you can be mobile with GSM terminals and can also communicate with server using your mobile phone. You can just purchase the GSM hardware like modems, terminals and mobile handsets, insert SIM cards, configure software and your are ready for GSM communication. GSM solutions can be implemented within few weeks whereas it may take many months to implement the infrastructure for other technologies.
Transaction terminals: EDC machines, POS terminals can use SMS messaging to confirm transactions from central servers. The main benefit is that central server can be anywhere in the world. Today you need local servers in every city with multiple telephone lines. You save huge infrastructure costs as well as per transaction cost.
Supply Chain Management: Today SCM require huge IT infrastructure with leased lines, networking devices, data centre, workstations and still you have large downtimes and high costs. You can do all this at a fraction of the cost with GSM M2M technology. A central server in your head office with GSM capability is the answer, you can receive instant transaction data from all your branch offices, warehouses and business associates with nil downtime and low cost.
What applications is suitable for GSM communication?
If your application needs one or more of the following features, GSM will be more cost-effective then other communication systems.
Short Data Size: You data size per transaction should be small like 1-3 lines. e.g. banking transaction data, sales/purchase data, consignment tracking data, updates. These small but important transaction data can be sent through SMS messaging which cost even less then a local telephone call or sometimes free of cost worldwide. Hence with negligible cost you are able to send critical information to your head office located anywhere in the world from multiple points. You can also transfer faxes, large data through GSM but this will be as or more costly compared to landline networks.
Multiple Remote Data Collection Points: If you have multiple data collections points situated all over your city, state, country or worldwide you will benefit the most. The data can be sent from multiple points like your branch offices, business associates, warehouses, agents with devices like GSM modems connected to PCs, GSM electronic terminals and Mobile phones. Many a times some places like warehouses may be situated at remote location may not have landline or internet but you will have GSM network still available easily.
High Uptime: If your business require high uptime and availability GSM is best suitable for you as GSM mobile networks have high uptime compared to landline, internet and other communication mediums. Also in situations where you expect that someone may sabotage your communication systems by cutting wires or taping landlines, you can depend on GSM wireless communication.
Large Transaction Volumes: GSM SMS messaging can handle large number of transaction in a very short time. You can receive large number SMS messages on your server like e-mails without internet connectivity. E-mails normally get delayed a lot but SMS messages are almost instantaneous for instant transactions. consider situation like shop owners doing credit card transaction with GSM technology instead of conventional landlines. many a time you find local transaction servers busy as these servers use multiple telephone lines to take care of multiple transactions, whereas one GSM connection is enough to handle hundreds of transaction per minute.
Mobility, Quick installation: GSM technology allow mobility, GSM terminals, modems can be just picked and installed at other location unlike telephone lines. Also you can be mobile with GSM terminals and can also communicate with server using your mobile phone. You can just purchase the GSM hardware like modems, terminals and mobile handsets, insert SIM cards, configure software and your are ready for GSM communication. GSM solutions can be implemented within few weeks whereas it may take many months to implement the infrastructure for other technologies.
WHAT IS GSM?
GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) is a digital mobile telephony system that is widely used in Europe and other parts of the world. GSM uses a variation of time division multiple access (TDMA) and is the most widely used of the three digital wireless telephony technologies (TDMA, GSM, and CDMA). GSM digitizes and compresses data, then sends it down a channel with two other streams of user data, each in its own time slot. It operates at either the 900 MHz or 1800 MHz frequency band.
During the early 1980s, analog cellular telephone systems were experiencing rapid growth in Europe, particularly in Scandinavia and the United Kingdom, but also in France and Germany. Each country developed its own system, which was incompatible with everyone else's in equipment and operation. This was an undesirable situation, because not only was the mobile equipment limited to operation within national boundaries, which in a unified Europe were increasingly unimportant, but there was a very limited market for each type of equipment, so economies of scale, and the subsequent savings, could not be realized.
The Europeans realized this early on, and in 1982 the Conference of European Posts and Telegraphs (CEPT) formed a study group called the Groupe Spécial Mobile (GSM) to study and develop a panEuropean public land mobile system. The proposed system had to meet certain criteria:
Good subjective speech quality
Low terminal and service cost
Support for international roaming
Ability to support handhald terminals
Support for range of new services and facilities
Spectral efficiency
ISDN compatibility
In 1989, GSM responsibility was transferred to the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI), and phase I of the GSM specifications were published in 1990. Commercial service was started in mid1991, and by 1993 there were 36 GSM networks in 22 countries, with 25 additional countries having already selected or considering GSM . This is not only a European standard - South Africa, Australia, and many Middle and Far East countries have chosen GSM. By the beginning of 1994, there were 1.3 million subscribers worldwide . The acronym GSM now (aptly) stands for Global System for Mobile telecommunications.
The developers of GSM chose an unproven (at the time) digital system, as opposed to the thenstandard analog cellular systems like AMPS in the United States and TACS in the United Kingdom. They had faith that advancements in compression algorithms and digital signal processors would allow the fulfillment of the original criteria and the continual improvement of the system in terms of quality and cost. The 8000 pages of the GSM recommendations try to allow flexibility and competitive innovation among suppliers, but provide enough guidelines to guarantee the proper interworking between the components of the system. This is done in part by providing descriptions of the interfaces and functions of each of the functional entities defined in the system.
During the early 1980s, analog cellular telephone systems were experiencing rapid growth in Europe, particularly in Scandinavia and the United Kingdom, but also in France and Germany. Each country developed its own system, which was incompatible with everyone else's in equipment and operation. This was an undesirable situation, because not only was the mobile equipment limited to operation within national boundaries, which in a unified Europe were increasingly unimportant, but there was a very limited market for each type of equipment, so economies of scale, and the subsequent savings, could not be realized.
The Europeans realized this early on, and in 1982 the Conference of European Posts and Telegraphs (CEPT) formed a study group called the Groupe Spécial Mobile (GSM) to study and develop a panEuropean public land mobile system. The proposed system had to meet certain criteria:
Good subjective speech quality
Low terminal and service cost
Support for international roaming
Ability to support handhald terminals
Support for range of new services and facilities
Spectral efficiency
ISDN compatibility
In 1989, GSM responsibility was transferred to the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI), and phase I of the GSM specifications were published in 1990. Commercial service was started in mid1991, and by 1993 there were 36 GSM networks in 22 countries, with 25 additional countries having already selected or considering GSM . This is not only a European standard - South Africa, Australia, and many Middle and Far East countries have chosen GSM. By the beginning of 1994, there were 1.3 million subscribers worldwide . The acronym GSM now (aptly) stands for Global System for Mobile telecommunications.
The developers of GSM chose an unproven (at the time) digital system, as opposed to the thenstandard analog cellular systems like AMPS in the United States and TACS in the United Kingdom. They had faith that advancements in compression algorithms and digital signal processors would allow the fulfillment of the original criteria and the continual improvement of the system in terms of quality and cost. The 8000 pages of the GSM recommendations try to allow flexibility and competitive innovation among suppliers, but provide enough guidelines to guarantee the proper interworking between the components of the system. This is done in part by providing descriptions of the interfaces and functions of each of the functional entities defined in the system.
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