Introduction:

GPRS is the pivotal technology that brought packet switching to the world of mobile communications. It’s no secret that GPRS suffers from some significant drawbacks, for which it is sometimes unjustly ‘blamed’. What we fail to recognize is that GPRS was meant to be a stepping stone to bigger and better things. EDGE, often refereed to as “Enhanced GPRS” is that next step up! Edge overcomes the limitations of GPRS in truly unique ways, the discussion of which constitutes the content of this course. If you have taken our GPRS course or are otherwise familiar with the technology, you’re well aware of the technology’s shortcomings and the fact that some of them are both serious and not solvable within the GPRS framework. After completing this course, you will know how EDGE tackles those problems, very effectively at that. You will learn what options are available to the network optimization processes and their advantages and disadvantages.

Audience:

Engineers with GSM/GPRS experience who wish to learn about EDGE. The standard presentation of this course assumes a bachelor of science in Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or a related subject along with an appropriate background in communications.

Prerequisites:

Working knowledge of wireless network structure and operation, RF propagation and fading issues, and link budget analysis Working knowledge of packet switching and associated networking problems and solution approaches At least two years experience in the design and optimization of a wireless network using any major technology

Customize it

This 2-3-day course will be customized to your needs and specifications. Enowireless will assist you in identifying those needs and specifications. A word to the wise, there are many vendors of wireless training. They will typically have a broad and general course, one size fits all, already developed and just put your organization’s name on the title slide. This minimizes their effort and time investment. At Enowireless, every course is made to your exact and exacting specifications. We help you ensure what you are getting is what you really need even if at the beginning you weren’t too sure of what that was. We fit the class to your needs. We never fit you into our “standard”, one size fits all, class.

Course Objectives:

This course introduces the technical fundamentals of Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution (EDGE).

Course Outline

Motivation, Background, and Limitations of GPRS: Why Did EDGE Become a Necessity What are the fundamental limitations of GPRS? Enhanced GPRS (EGPRS) vis-à-vis Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) GPRS/EGPRS Network Architecture GPRS mobile station modes and classes Packet control unit (PCU) and channel codec unit (CCU) Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN) Border Gateway (BG) Protocol stacks between the various GPRS network elements and network optimization considerations EDGE Air Interface Protocol Structures EDGE vis-à-vis GPRS vis-à-vis GSM RF layer GMSK of GPRS versus 8-PSK option of EDGE EDGE Medium Access Control (MAC) Sublayer EDGE Radio Link Control (RLC) Sublayer EDGE link adaptation schemes Air interface optimization considerations EDGE Layer 2 Retransmission Strategies Soft decoding Incremental redundancy and hybrid ARQ Modulation and Coding Schemes (MCS) and associated RLC block structures and issues Optimization considerations vis-à-vis retransmission strategies used in EDGE and MCS families **Course Recap and Conclusion