Sunday, October 14, 2012

EDGE Evolution - Part 3



Important Enhancements during GPRS to EDGE/EDGE II Evolution


Post the introduction of EDGE/EGPRS operators & vendors observed that the demand is further raised than the current capacity which eventually triggered the 3rd Generation Mobile telecom services roll out. But some enhancements were inevitable on existing infrastructure which are supporting GPRS/EDGE.

As part of 3GPP R4 review, Gb over IP has been inducted as part of the standards. This Ip-fication step also helps to improve the throughput capacity of Gb interface due to IP Link’s nature of flexibility in capacity growth. Additionally IP technology helps the fast processing of user data packets more efficiently in terms of speed then legacy FRAME RELAY interfaces used earlier in Gb interfaces.FR required extensive hardware and lacked the flexibility in handling growing capacity.


Post 2001, all the base stations manufactured were enabled to support EDGE II (i.e. EGERS 2A & B). Only software upgrade is required to support the Evolved EDGE.

Only handsets are needed to be upgraded to support the feature.         

Figure 1 : 3GPP R4 Standard PS Core Architecture


Figure 2 : 3GPP R4 Gb over IP

Figure 3 :BTS Support for EGPRS2 A & B
  Figure 4 : 3GPP R8 Abis over IP



When we have all the interface on IP technology and only Abis interface in traditional TDM based 2 Mbps PCM type interface, then that will be the only inefficient transport system in the network. 3GPP has already given a recommendation as part 3GPP R8 to replace that as IP technology. It took time for 3GPP to release the recommendations due to the fact that most of the networks Voice network traffic were still carried on TDM interfaces at Abis interface. Once the IP-fication thinking started to come in to picture complete IP-fication is must in Abis interfaces also to support a greater efficiency in Access Transport Network. 

It was not the BTS/BSCs capability made the delay, it was more of wait on efficient transport networks connecting them.

References : 



ETSI - A-interface over IP study Available from:

3GPP - A-interface over IP study (AINTIP) Available from:

Development Progress of Evolved EDGE by ZTE Available from:

Ericsson’s IP-based BSS and radio network server by Niilo Musikka and Lennart Rinnb.ck Available from:
View S.Sunil Kumar's profile on LinkedIn

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