Temporary Block Flow (TBF):A Temporary Block Flow (TBF) is a logical connection used by two

General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) entities(MS-BS) to support the

unidirectional transfer of lower layer compatibility (LLC) and
protocol data units (PDUs) on packet data physical channels (PDCHs)
(or timeslots).
The current TBF handling in GPRS is based upon burst traffic models,
such as Web surfing and email transfer.
TBF setup is initiated upon buffering a packet for transmission in the
MS.
In GPRS, TBF set-up is performed on a RACH and requires some time.
The TBF set-up delay however adversely affects the performance of
some real-time applications such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
among other delay sensitive applications.
TBF is released when all buffered packets are de-queued before the
arrival of the next packet.
This release mechanism may result in frequent TBF re-establishments
and associated delays for some applications, for example, in VoIP
applications, which include a sequence of packets containing voice
frames are regularly separated by an inter-arrival time within a talk
spurt. Frequent TBF setup/release events may also unnecessarily
increase signaling overhead.
In a typical GPRS system, the network needs to establish a downlink
(DL) TBF to transfer data in the DL direction and an uplink (UL) TBF to
transfer data in the UL direction. TBFs are typically short-lived and are
generally only active during data transfers. I.e. until there are no more
RLC (Radio Link Control) / MAC (Medium Access Control) blocks to be
transmitted.