General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)

What is General Packet Radio Service?

General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a mobile data transmission service, better known by its abbreviation GPRS. It was developed as an extension of the GSM mobile network and enables packet-based data transmission. Data is split into small packets and sent over available channels, allowing multiple users to share the same connection and improving network efficiency. GPRS supported transmission speeds of up to 171.2 kbit/s, though typical speeds ranged between 40 and 60 kbit/s—significantly higher than the maximum 9.6 kbit/s of GSM.

GPRS was widely used for mobile internet services such as WAP, email, and MMS. Today, it can still be found in IoT devices, telematics systems, and in some regions as a backup network.

GPRS was the predecessor of EDGE, UMTS, 4G, and 5G and is often referred to as a 2.5G standard, as it was introduced between GSM (2G) and UMTS (3G).

Key Features of GPRS:

• Packet-switched transmission
• Significantly faster than GSM
• Always-on connection
• Billing typically based on data volume