Cellular communication technologies: Understanding how the cellular service works

Today’s work force is demanding mobility, flexibility and real-time access to critical data. Over recent years, the trend towards the smaller and faster device, coupled with the need for information access on the move, has paved the way for a new technology of the Mobile communications. Mobility is the ability to access information and services anywhere anytime anyhow. On the telecom front, numerous wireless technologies have been introduced in the country. It started with Global System Mobile telecommunications (GSM) based mobile phones, and today we can see General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) technologies being implemented as well.

This presentation involves the two ‘hot’ telecom technologies fighting out in the markets, namely GSM and GPRS. It also includes a detail explanation of the advantages they offer, how they work, and their limitations. Also explained are some of the possible applications that can be made possible with them. Before going in detail into these technologies, a look towards the Basic Cellular Architecture has been made.

[...] A cellular mobile communication system uses a large number of low-power wireless transmitters to create cells the basic geographic service area of a wireless communication system. Variable power levels allow cells to be sized according to the subscriber density and demand within a particular region. As mobile users travel from cell to cell, their conversations are “handed between cells in order to maintain seamless service. Channels (frequencies) used in one cell can be reused in another cell some distance away. [...]

[...] Designed to supplement the existing mobile technologies, like GSM, CDMA, TDMA etc, GPRS aims to provide anytime-anywhere always-on” network connections to mobile devices. GPRS also enables mobile networks to provide speeds much higher than those offered by GSM alone Why GPRS? Though GSM uses circuit switching like a telephone line, data transfer over GSM is not quite the same as that over the PSTN line. For each of our data requests (Over GSM), first, a connection is established without network, our request sent, the data received and then, and this is important, that call is disconnected. [...]

[...] This allows one to access the Internet from a GSM phone, and service providers are offering this service. You can send email from the handset and lots more Data Transfer Rate as a Limitation One limitation of GSM is that currently it has a maximum data transfer rate of only 9 kbps, but new developments like HSCSD (high –speed circuit switched data) and GPRS (general packet switched radio) are pushing this up quite a bit GPRS Technology General Packet Radio Service or GPRS is relatively a new technology that offers packet based radio service to mobile networks. [...]