LTE North America Award Preview - Best Network/Device Testing Product for LTE

The Lte North America Awards Will Take Place On The 8 November 2011 At The Fairmont Hotel In Dallas, Texas, Usa

The LTE North America awards 2011 are taking place on the 8th November 2011 at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas, Texas, USA. The awards celebrate the innovation and excellence in that has taken place over the past 12 months in the LTE industry and features 60 nominees across 9 categories. In the lead up to the awards, we are featuring close looks at each of the companies shortlisted.

Test and Measurement may not be the glitziest aspect of the industry, but it’s an essential part of a networks role to ensure that devices work as expected before they are unleashed onto the networks.Here we bring you a preview of the LTE North America 2011 Awards category that celebrates this dedication to detail: Best Network/Device Testing Product for LTE.

Anritsu: ME7834 mobile device test platform

The ME7834 Mobile Device Test Platform offers industry-leading test coverage for both Protocol Conformance Test (PCT) and Carrier Acceptance Test (CAT) and enables carriers to test their devices for both LTE and CDMA. With 15 tests cases available for the former, and nine test cases for the later the ME7834 represents industry-leading test coverage.

The ME7834 is the only LTE test system that can conduct inter-frequency handover tests with a single box while in 2×2 MIMO mode and it’s also unique in that it can conduct a complete regression test suite on LTE wireless devices in less than 24 hours. Anristu says that it’s twice as fast as any other protocol test system providing better ROI than competitive systems. So far, three carriers have selected the ME7834 Mobile Device Test Platform.

Anritsu: BTS Master and Cell Master

Having to take an eNode B offline to test its performance is not something carriers like to have to do, as inevitably it results in blocking customer calls and lost revenue. Anritsu’s Cell Master enable them to avoid having to do that. It instead takes Reference Signal power measurements to indirectly, but still accurately, monitor LTE output power as well as make a broad range of other measurements. The Cell Master is small, light, and economical in operation and field engineers and technicians can use it to sweep cables, make power measurements, find interference, troubleshoot base station signal quality, or verify backhaul performance to improve the reliability of LTE networks. Using it is likely to result in less subscriber dissatisfaction and less churn. It will also help increase capacity with a likely side benefit of higher Average Revenue Per User (ARPU).

JDSU: Signaling Analyzer Real Time (SART) 7.1

JDSU’s SART is a complete solution that enables service providers and network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) to evaluate LTE network performance, troubleshoot network issues and identify their root causes through the entire LTE network lifecycle. SART delivers critical real-time test results and end-to-end network visibility from LTE trials to network deployment and ultimately to operations. JDSU’s SART is unique in that it provides real-time capture and analysis at multi-Gbps data rates.

Newfield Wireless: TrueCall

TrueCall enables operators to develop a better understanding of the capabilities of an LTE network and the ability to measure the threshold of new devices and their impact on LTE networks. It’s an OEM and vendor agnostic network visualisation tool that enables networks to evaluate and monitor the customers experience on a network using precise geolocation data and is the first in the world to do so for LTE.  It can handle millions of events on a network and detect dropped calls and data connections, giving real-time data on performance or the network and devices.

Techmahindra: SWIFT

The Simulation With In-circuit Functional Test Tool – or SWIFT as it is fortunately known, is used for end-to-end testing of networks and devices. It’s aimed at providing a fast and effective solution for testing and Techmahindra claims it offers a simulation language that is 16 times more efficient than previous efforts. It offers dynamic visualisations and validation of real-world component behaviour. It’s claimed that SWIFT will help delver a reduction in CAPEX and OPEX through more efficient use of the network, by minimising infrastructure costs based on effective data. The use of this end-to-end tool should also remove the need for multiple tools that focus on specific aspects of the network and provide a larger top-down view.

Tektronix Communications, LTE Monitoring Solution

Tektronix LTE monitoring solution is designed to ensure the operational readiness of Tier 1 carrier’s LTE deployments. It provides a ‘single pane of glass’ view onto a network combining the service plans and the network performance into a single dashboard.  It operates whatever the technology, be it, LTE, or CDMA or GSM-based 3G. It offers the ability to carry out performance and subscriber intelligence analysis, subscriber level troubleshooting, real-time traffic characterisation, and packet forensic analysis. Tektronix is working closely with a 4G operators in North America and using the LTE Monitoring Solution was able to deploy KPI’s for quality assurance in a matter of hours, rather than the six weeks required by legacy products. The tool provides a real opportunity to evaluate which network activities will have the largest and most positive impact on customer experience to increase operational efficiency for the network operator.