Introduction:

GPRS is the first technology to introduce packet switching to the world of mobile communications in a meaningful, large scale context. As such, it adds two major, equally important, elements, viz., (i) packet switching over the air interface and (ii) enhancements to the core to support packet switching on a GSM network. Implementing packet switching over a highly unreliable and time varying channel, such as is typical in today’s wireless communications, is not an easy task. In this course, you will learn how GPRS tackles this problem and achieves a reasonable performance using packet switching over the air interface. You will also learn the new interfaces that were necessary in the fixed portion of the network to support an end-to-end packet switched service. We will not be shy about highlighting the shortcomings of GPRS, some of them quite serious. We will go on to learn which of these shortcomings can be mitigated (along with how that’s done) and which are unsolvable within the framework of GPRS

Audience:

Engineers experienced in GSM who wish to learn more about GPRS. 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 3-4-day GPRS 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.

Objectives:

Course Outline

Motivation, Background, and GPRS Services General perceptions of GPRS: True and false! Review of existing GSM network architecture and data services: Or Motivation for GPRS GPRS traffic models GPRS-offered data services GPRS 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 GPRS Air Interface Protocol Structures Mobility management and routing areas vis-à-vis location areas Mobile station states: Idle, Ready, Standby and associated transition and triggering mechanisms and parameters GPRS vis-à-vis GSM RF layer GPRS Medium Access Control (MAC) Sublayer GPRS Radio Link Control (RLC) Sublayer GPRS Logical Link Control (LLC) Layer GPRS Structures on the TDMA Air Interface New set of logical channels defined by GPRS The GPRS-Introduced 52-frame multiframe Mapping of GPRS logical channels to the physical channel(s) MAC operation and resource allocation schemes in GPRS RLC block structures and associated issues Retransmission strategies used in GPRS and protocol stalling issues Course Recap and Conclusion Strengths and weaknesses of GPRS Motivation for Enhanced GPRS (EGPRS), or EDGE