Subscriber terminal, network controller and communication system for performing packet data transfer with reduced delay

摘要

In a communication system (SYS) in which a packet data transfer is performed between the network side (NS) and the subscriber terminal side (SS) a physical connection (LC) is maintained during the data packet transfer. An active period detector (AP-DET) detects an active period of data packet generation by evaluating the inter-arrival time (TDIFF) between successively arriving data packets (DP). If the inter-arrival time (TDIFF) falls within a predetermined range a physical connection maintaining device (LC-MAIN) maintains the physical connection (LC) even if a transmitter queue (TR-QUE) temporarily becomes empty. Therefore, within the active period (AP) the transmitter (NS-TR; SS-TR) indicates a non-empty queue. The invention finds particular application in the GPRS/(E)GPRS/GSM environment.