Improved Latency Performance with GSM/EDGE Continued Evolution

The world´s largest and most widespread cellular technology today is GSM/EDGE. EDGE is capable of offering an attractive solution for 3^rd generation cellular services in existing GSM networks. However, the introduction of new and more delay sensitive services may require improved latency performance. Reducing the delay and increasing the bandwidth efficiency in EDGE systems is important for services with stringent latency requirements, such as conversational VoIP, but will be beneficial also to other services. Proposed is to reduce the transmission time interval from 20 ms to 10 ms, in combination with novel procedures for faster feedback. Simulation results show that LLC delays may be reduced by 20-40% depending on traffic scenario. Furthermore, channel resource requirements for VoIP could be substantially reduced.