Since its standardization was finalized by the 3GPP in year 2000, EDGE – Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution – has achieved market maturity in terms of networks, terminals and business models. Upgrading to EDGE has become a natural step for operators who want to offer high-performance mobile data services over GSM. EDGE gives them a cost-efficient way to reach the mass market to boost the uptake of mobile data services.

In the mid-1990s GSM deployment gathered pace around the world, and this growth continues today. More than 80 per cent of all mobile users in the world are served by GSM, and every month another 30–40 million new users join the GSM community. As a mobile technology, the coverage, economies of scale, simplicity and maturity of GSM are unmatched, and these are all benefits that EDGE shares too.

Standardized in 3GPP as part of the GSM/WCDMA family, EDGE is a simple and cost-efficient upgrade that provides a more than three-fold increase in both the capacity and performance of GSM/GPRS networks. It does this by introducing sophisticated methods of coding and transmitting data, delivering higher bit-rates per radio channel, as illustrated in Figure 1.