Integrated radio telecommunications network and method of interworking an ANSI-41 network and the general packet radio service (GPRS)

An integrated radio telecommunications network which integrates an ANSI-41 circuit switched network and a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) packet data network, said integrated radio telecommunications network comprising:

• a mobile switching center (MSC) in the ANSI-41 network that provides circuit switched services to a mobile station which operates in both the ANSI-41 network and the GPRS network;
• a serving GPRS switching node (SGSN) in the GPRS network that provides packet switched services to the mobile station;
• an interworking function that interfaces the MSC with the SGSN, said interworking function mapping circuit switched signaling utilized by the MSC into GPRS packet switched signaling utilized by the SGSN, and mapping GPRS packet switched signaling into circuit switched signaling;
• an interworking GPRS base station controller that interfaces the SGSN with a GPRS/ANSI-136 base station which supports both ANSI-136 operations and GPRS operations, said interworking GPRS base station controller adapting a signaling format utilized by the SGSN into an air interface signaling format, and passing traffic signaling between the SGSN and the GPRS/ANSI-136 base station;
• and
• means for tunneling ANSI-136 information between the mobile station and the ANSI-41 network by adding the ANSI-136 information to selected GPRS messages.