GSM / GPRS
Infineon offers handset manufacturers a whole range of cost-optimized solutions to address the ultra-low cost market and low-cost GPRS handset market.
What is GSM?
The Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) has become the world's leading mobile standard, being used by over 200 countries around the world and by more than one third of the world's population. GSM is an open, digital cellular technology used for transmitting mobile voice and data services and has become the fasting growing communication technology, with the enabling of international roaming being one of the greatest benefits of GSM.
GSM (2G) differs from first generation wireless systems in that it uses digital technology and time division multiple access transmission methods. Supporting up to 9.6 Kbit data transfers speeds GSM allows basic data service suppoert such as Short Message Service (SMS). A circuit-switched system that divides each 200 kHz channel into eight 25 kHz time-slots, GSM operates in the 900MHz and 1.8GHz bands in Europe and the 1.9GHz and 850MHz bands in the US. The 850MHz band is also used for GSM and 3GSM in Australia, Canada and many South American countries.
What is GPRS?
The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a connectivity solution based on Internet Protocols supporting a wide range of enterprise and consumer applications available now with almost every GSM network. GPRS supports a number of data services such as Short Messange Service (SMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) access, as well as Internet communications services (Email and World Wide Web access). Additionally GPRS customers enjoy a number of advanced, feature-rich data services such as colour Internet browsing, e-mail on the move, video streaming, multimedia messages and location-based services.
GPRS data transfer is typically charged per megabyte of traffic transferred, while data communications via traditional circuit switching is billed per minute of connection time, independent of whether the user actually is using the capacity or is in an idle state. 2G cellular systems combined with GPRS are often described as "2.5G", that is, a technologiy between the second (2G) and third (3G) generations of mobile telephony. It provides moderate speed data transfer, by using unused Time division multiple access (TDMA) channels in, for example, the GSM system.
For many operators, the adoption of GPRS has been a fast and cost-effective strategy that supported the real first wave of mobile Internet services.