Quality of service control over GPRS data network

Abstract

The general packet radio service (GPRS) is a packet data service for phase 2+ of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). It not only defines the packet-switch data service on top of GSM, but also tries to provide quality of service (QoS) guarantees on data flows. Although the technical specifications define a number of QoS parameters and service classes, the QoS control mechanisms and procedures are out of the specifications. We elaborate the admission control, resource reservation, policing, and scheduling mechanisms, and apply them to different level of components in a GPRS data network. Integrating the proposed QoS control procedures on different GPRS nodes, the QoS requirements specified in a service contract can be easily achieved.