Editor’s Note: The ability to test network and device features and functions is an important piece of technology development and deployment. RCR Wireless looks weekly at test and measurement news to see what’s afoot.
—NI has joined the CROWD consortium, otherwise known as the European Union Framework Project 7, to define 5G communications standards for heterogeneous networks. CROWD focuses on network densification through a mix of small cells and large-density cells. NI is one of seven collaborators in the group, and its equipment is part of an LTE/Wi-Fi testbed for experimenting with software-defined networking (SDN) concepts.
James Kimery, director of RF, communications and software-defined radio for NI, said in a statement that “current demand is barely supported by existing network infrastructure, so we need higher points of dense networks. However, network densification requires advanced self-organized network techniques to manage interference. The goal of CROWD is to develop higher layer algorithms to manage increased complexity due to densification.”
—Spirent Communications was testing SDN/OpenFlow topologies at this week’s SDN and OpenFlow world congress in Germany, focusing on whether they can offer the necessary scale for deploying services while maintaining network quality of service (QoS) and end-user quality of experience (QoE). Spirent partnered with Real Status for SDN switch emulation, as well as working with Netronome and Advantech for a simulation of a large-scale SDN network working at high flow rates.
—AT4 Wireless labs have been approved by the Wi-Fi Alliance to conduct certification testing for two of its most recently launched certification programs: Passpoint, the brand name for Hotspot 2.0; and Wi-Fi Direct, which enables two Wi-Fi devices to connect directly to each other for purposes like printing documents or displaying information, without the use of a Wi-Fi hotspot connection.
—Keysight Technologies has expanded its method of implementation (MOI) for USB 2.0 on its ENA series network analyzer. USB 3.0 and cable assembly compliance was already available; this addition makes for a more complete solution, the company said. Keysight also announced this week that it now has test support software for the USB 3.1 standard.
Keysight also has posted a new application note about LTE and LTE-Advanced, which outlines both details of releases from 8 on up to release 11 of LTE-A, and updates as far out as release 13, as well as product design and testing information.
