scope:

Introduction

EGPRS-136 integrates the TIA/EIA-136 air interface with the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) as specified by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Specifically, EGPRS-136 supports a packet data service on a 200-kHz air interface as specified in ETSI TS 145 001 [14]. In addition to the packet data service available with EGPRS-136, an EGPRS- 136 subscriber shall also have the capability to receive existing TIA/EIA-136 and TIA/EIA-41 services (e.g., circuit switched voice services, and short messaging services), provided the subscriber's mobile station supports both circuit-mode and packet-mode.

EGPRS-136 allows the service subscriber to send and receive data in an end-to-end packet mode, without utilizing network resources in circuit mode. EGPRS-136 enables the efficient use of network resources for packet data applications. For example, EGPRS-136 is well suited for applications that exhibit one or more of the following characteristics:

• intermittent, non-periodic (i.e., bursty) data transmissions, where the time between successive transmissions greatly exceeds the average transfer delay;

• frequent transmissions of small volumes of data (e.g., transactions consisting of less than 500 octets occurring at a rate of up to several transactions per minute);

• infrequent transmission of larger volumes of data (e.g., transactions consisting of several kilobytes occurring at a rate of up to several transactions per hour).

Within the GPRS, two different bearer service types are specified. These are:

• Point-To-Point (PTP) - see ETSI TS 122 060 [26] for a detailed description

• Point-To-Multipoint (PTM) - see ETSI TS 122 060 for a detailed description.

Based on standardized network protocols supported by the EGPRS-136 bearer services, an EGPRS-136 network administration may offer (or support) a set of additional services. These services are outside the scope of this standard; however, a number of possible point-to-point interactive teleservices include the following:

• retrieval services that provide the capability of accessing information stored in database centers. The information is sent to the user on demand only. An example of one such service is the Internet World Wide Web (WWW);

• messaging services that offer user-to-user communication via storage units with store-and-forward mailbox, or message-handling functions;

• conversational services that provide bi-directional communication by means of real-time (no store-and-forward) end-to-end information transfer from user to user (e.g., Internet Telnet application);

• tele-action services that are characterized by low data volume (short) transactions (e.g., credit card validations, lottery transactions, utility meter readings, and electronic surveillance systems).

Some examples of teleservices which may be supported by a PTM bearer service include:

• distribution services which are characterized by the unidirectional flow of information from a given point in the network to other (multiple) locations. Examples may include news, weather and traffic reports, as well as product or service advertisements;

• dispatching services which are characterized by the bi-directional flow of information from a given point in the network (dispatcher) and other (multiple) users. Examples include taxi and public utility fleet services;

• conferencing services which provide multi-directional communication by means of real-time (no store-and-forward) information transfer between multiple users.

Capabilities that may be offered together with the PTM bearer services include:

• geographical routing capability, which provides the ability to restrict message distribution to a specified geographical area;

• scheduled delivery capability, allowing store-and-forward type services to specify a future delivery time and a repetition rate.

It is possible to include these capabilities as part of the service request (i.e., as part of the packet-data service). Some operators may offer PTM services only together with these capabilities.