Data Transfer Technologies

WAP : Wireless Application Protocol

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is a technical standard for accessing information over a
mobile wireless network. A WAP browser is a web browser for mobile devicessuch as mobile
phones that uses the protocol. Before the introduction of WAP, mobile service providers had limited
opportunities to offer interactive data services, but needed interactivity to
support Internet and Web applications such as:

Email by mobile phone

Tracking of stock-market prices

Sports results

News headlines

Music downloads

The Japanese i-mode system offers another major competing wireless data protocol. As of 2013,
WAP use has largely disappeared in Europe and the United States. Most modern handset internet
browsers now fully support HTML, so do not need to use WAP markup for webpage compatibility,
and most of them are no longer able to render and display pages written in WAP.

GPRS : General Packet Radio Service

General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a packet oriented mobile data service on
the 2G and 3G cellular communication system's global system for mobile communications(GSM).
GPRS was originally standardized by European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in
response to the earlier CDPD and i-mode packet-switched cellular technologies. It is now maintained
by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).[1][2]
GPRS usage is typically charged based on volume of data transferred, contrasting with circuit
switched data, which is usually billed per minute of connection time. Usage above the bundle cap is
charged per megabyte, speed limited, or disallowed.

GPRS is a best-effort service, implying variable throughput and latency that depend on the number
of other users sharing the service concurrently, as opposed to circuit switching, where a
certain quality of service (QoS) is guaranteed during the connection. In 2G systems, GPRS provides
data rates of 56114 kbit/second.[3] 2G cellular technology combined with GPRS is sometimes
described as 2.5G, that is, a technology between the second (2G) and third (3G) generations of
mobile telephony.[4] It provides moderate-speed data transfer, by using unused time division multiple
access (TDMA) channels in, for example, the GSM system. GPRS is integrated into GSM Release
97 and newer releases.

EDGE : Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution

Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) (also known as Enhanced GPRS (EGPRS),
or IMT Single Carrier (IMT-SC), or Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution) is a digital mobile
phone technology that allows improved data transmission rates as a backward-compatible extension
ofGSM. EDGE is considered a pre-3G radio technology and is part of ITU's 3G definition.[1] EDGE
was deployed on GSM networks beginning in 2003 initially by Cingular (now AT&T) in the United
States.[2]
EDGE is standardized also by 3GPP as part of the GSM family. A variant, so called Compact-EDGE,
was developed for use in a portion of Digital AMPSnetwork spectrum.[3]
Through the introduction of sophisticated methods of coding and transmitting data, EDGE delivers
higher bit-rates per radio channel, resulting in a threefold increase in capacity and performance
compared with an ordinary GSM/GPRS connection.
EDGE can be used for any packet switched application, such as an Internet connection.
Evolved EDGE continues in Release 7 of the 3GPP standard providing reduced latency and more
than doubled performance e.g. to complement High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA). Peak bit-rates of
up to 1 Mbit/s and typical bit-rates of 400 kbit/s can be expected.

HSCSD : High-Speed Circuit-Switched Data

HSCSD is a system based on CSD but designed to provide higher data rates by means of more
efficient channel coding and/or multiple (up to 4) time slots. It requires the time slots being used to
be fully reserved to a single user. It is possible that either at the beginning of the call, or at some

point during a call, it will not be possible for the user's full request to be satisfied since the network is
often configured to allow normal voice calls to take precedence over additional time slots for HSCSD
users.
The user is typically charged for HSCSD at a rate higher than a normal phone call (e.g., by the
number of time slots allocated) for the total period of time that the user has a connection active. This
makes HSCSD relatively expensive in many GSM networks and is one of the reasons that packetswitched General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), which typically has lower pricing (based on amount
of data transferred rather than the duration of the connection), has become more common than
HSCSD.
Apart from the fact that the full allocated bandwidth of the connection is available to the HSCSD
user, HSCSD also has an advantage in GSM systems in terms of lower average radio interface
latency than GPRS. This is because the user of an HSCSD connection does not have to wait for
permission from the network to send a packet.
HSCSD is also an option in Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) and Universal Mobile
Telecommunications System (UMTS) systems where packet data transmission rates are much
higher. In the UMTS system, the advantages of HSCSD over packet data are even lower since the
UMTS radio interface has been specifically designed to support high bandwidth, low latency packet
connections. This means that the primary reason to use HSCSD in this environment would be
access to legacy dial up systems.

MOBILE IP : A standard that allows mobile devices whose IP addresses are associated with one
network, stay connected.

Mobile IP (or MIP) is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard

communications protocol that is designed to allow mobile device users to move from one network to
another while maintaining a permanent IP address. Mobile IP for IPv4 is described in IETF RFC
5944, and extensions are defined in IETF RFC 4721. Mobile IPv6, the IP mobility implementation for
the next generation of the Internet Protocol, IPv6, is described in RFC 6275.