Proposed evolution of GPRS for the support of voice services

The authors address the suitability of the general packet radio service (GPRS) developed in phase 2+ of the GSM standardisation process to carry real-time speech traffic. As the current GPRS standards are tailored towards the optimum transmission of delay-insensitive data traffic, enhancements to the current standards are proposed, and an evaluation of the relative performance of the current and proposed systems is carried out. The actual speech quality that can be obtained over GPRS packet data channels is examined and compared to the quality of GSM speech channels under identical channel conditions.