EDGE vs GPRS

This page on EDGE vs GPRS describes difference between EDGE and GPRS. Both these technologies are added later to GSM standard to provide better experience with internet services supported by the GSM. Both GPRS and EDGE(referred as Enhanced GPRS) are mainly packet swiched technologies.


GPRS is the short form of General Packet Radio Service and EDGE is the short form of Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution.

GPRS supports data rate upto 115kbps while EDGE supports data rate upto 384 kbps approx. To support higher data rate EDGE adopts higher modulation schemes such as 8-PSK.

GPRS supports CS1,CS2,CS3,CS4 modulation-coding schemes which are GMSK based. EDGE supports MCS1 to MCS9, in these MCS1 to MCS4 supports GMSK and MCS5 to MCS9 supports 8-PSK.

EDGE can retransmit a packet with more robust coding scheme. In EDGE re-segmentation is possible while in GPRS re-segmentation is not possible.

In EDGE packets are addressed up to 2048 and window size to 1024 while GPRS packets were numbered from 1 to 128 and addressing window size was 64.

RELATED LINKS EDGE and GPRS

What is EDGE
What is GPRS
GPRS Tutorial
GSM versus GPRS
8-PSK modulation basics
GMSK modulation basics

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