GP what?!

The 'General Packet Radio System' or GPRS for short, is a service for providing packet radio access on the GSM network. Packet transfer provides an efficient way to exchange data to and from mobile and packet networks and so this is very suitable for such things as IP (Internet Protocol) and can also be used to transfer MMS messages because of its higher data rate.

So GPRS is partly responsible for all the MMS pics that we exchange and for the ability to spend (or waste!) hours browsing the internet on our phones (but not in class of course!).

The GPRS specs are written up and maintained by the European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI), which is a part of ANSI, which may be more familiar to some people, as i'm sure a lot of us have heard of ANSI this, ANSI that standard etc. If you don't already know, ANSI stands for American National Standard Institute.

One of the benefits of GPRS is its 'always-on' feature, which remove the need for dial-up and connection as in normal GSM communication. The access is always on, and for example could allow emails to come through to your phone automatically as in 'Push email'.

The most common devices that uses GPRS is (unsuprisingly) mobile phones, but it can also be used by home broadband access USB dongles, and really any device that requires a consistent and high rate of data transfer, whatever that data may be, whether its web browsing or even data transfer between stock markets!

Now, if only I could be the beneficiary of some large stocks and shares!!

Chow!