GPRS is a permanent connection from a device with mobile communications capability to the internet (eg. mobile phone or ENAiKOON locate). These can be used, for example, to exchange data between an on-board computer in a vehicle and a server at the control centre at low cost.
GPRS is always used where small volumes of data are to be exchanged continuously between a remote monitoring module and the control centre.
In such cases, SMS is much more expensive and less reliable.
All ENAiKOON devices support data transmission by GPRS.
The substantial difference between GPRS and a “normal” mobile communications connection (based on a modem) is the cost: While the billing of a conventional mobile communications connection is based on the duration of the connection, for GPRS it is not the duration of the connection, but rather the volume of data transmitted, that is billed. Here, one transmitted character corresponds to one “byte”. Approx. one thousand bytes correspond to one kilobyte, and approx. one thousand kilobytes correspond to one megabyte (MB). One MB, therefore, is approx. one million characters.
The transmission of one MB costs, depending on the tariff plan, approx. 0.20 to 10 €, regardless of the duration of the transmission.
