Definition: GPRS

(General Packet Radio Service) The first data service for GSM cellular carriers. GPRS added a packet capability to GSM, which uses dedicated, circuit-switched channels for voice conversations.

GPRS works on GPRS cellphones as well as laptops and portable devices that have GPRS modems. Users have typically experienced downstream data rates up to 80 Kbps. GPRS is not the same as GSM's short messaging service (GSM-SMS), which is limited to messages of 160 bytes in length. GPRS was superseded by EDGE, which changed the modulation method to increase speed. See cellular generations, Wi-Fi vs. cellular, EDGE and GSM.