LAS VEGAS — It was a busy week for the networking testing space at Super Mobility Week, with a slew of product announcements that increased the options available for low-cost, app-based testing as well as exploring more virtualization and service-related monitoring.
Perhaps the biggest splash in network testing for the week wasn’t a product announcement, but the news that JDSU will split into two public companies by the third quarter of next year. Neither company has yet been named, but one will focus primarily on hardware in the form of JDSU’s optical components and commercial laser business, and the other will concern itself with network and service enablement, particularly emphasizing software.
Read more details from my interview with JDSU CEO Tom Waechter here.
—Rohde & Schwarz has been working with Qualcomm Technologies and successfully verified a range of test cases for eMBMS, or LTE broadcast/multicast, which was another big focus for the test market at SMW. R&S demonstrated those tests at CTIA using its CMW500 wideband radio communication tester to emulate an LTE band 13 network with IMS capabilities, and set up a video feed to a mobile device with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset as well establish VoLTE call simultaneously.
Rohde & Schwarz also recently announced a manufacturing test license with Broadcom, which means its equipment is validated for testing Broadcom WLAN and Bluetooth solutions. Test lab Teoco also recently expanded its offerings with R&S equipment for location-based services testing and performance testings.
—I saw at least three demos of mobile-device-based testing apps that can be handed over to anyone with a smartphone. The depth of the information varied according to the offering, but it was definitely a trend at work to at least offer basic network testing capabilities that can be used more broadly, by people who likely are not going to be test engineers. You can read more here, and see a video demo of the offering from GWS here.
—Azimuth Systems launched a new, scalable radio network emulation platform for LTE-Advanced, its Ace RNX for advanced network testing of small cells, heterogeneous networks, carrier aggregation, various MIMO implementations and advanced antenna systems. In particular, the new platform focuses on being able to increase the complexity of test cases and establish and test multiple radio links in the lab. Azimuth said that for example, tests involving carrier aggregation typically have long setup and calibration times due to their complexity and can also be insufficiently repeatable, and its new system is designed to address those type of testing issues.
Azimuth also has a new cloud-based interface with SOAP automation as part of its Director 3 software, for remote access and control and overall flexibility.
—Here’s one of RCR’s video interviews from the CTIA conference with JDSU’s Eduardo Insunza talking about market trends in test and how they’re shaping the company’s offerings, including its recent introduction of RF over CPRI testing capability:
—Outside of Super Mobility Week, there was word from Ixia that it has been granted another extension for its financial filings in order to maintain its listing status on the Nasdaq. This time it has until Nov. 1 to become current with the two quarterly filings that have to be restated after finding financial errors in the wake of its former CEO’s resignation. But the committee that grants the extension cannot grant any additional time to the company — if Ixia can’t get its filings in by the deadline, its stock will be delisted. Ixia says it will be able to refile in time.
