GPRS

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Wireless network technologies
Analog
0G 1G (1.5G)
Digital
2G (2.5G, 2.75G, 2.9G) 3G (3.5G, 3.75G, 3.9G/3.95G) 4G (4G/4.5G, 4.5G, 4.9G) 5G (5.5G) 6G
Mobile telecommunications
v t e

General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), also called 2.5G, is a mobile data standard on the 2G cellular communication network's global system for mobile communications (GSM).^[1] Networks and mobile devices with GPRS started to roll out around the year 2001;^[2] it offered, for the first time on GSM networks, seamless data transmission using packet data for an "always-on" connection (eliminating the need to "dial-up"),^[3] so providing improved Internet access for web, email, WAP services, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) and others.^[4]

Up until the rollout of GPRS, only circuit switched data was used in cellular networks, meaning that one or more radio channels were occupied for the entire duration of a data connection. On the other hand, on GPRS networks, data is broken into small packets and transmitted through available channels.^[5] This increased efficiency also gives it theoretical data rates of 56–114 kbit/s,^[6] significantly faster than the preceding Circuit Switched Data (CSD) technology. GPRS was succeeded by EDGE ("2.75G") which provided improved performance and speeds on the 2G GSM system.