The test-related products that vendors announced around CTIA Super Mobility 2015 tend to be a reflection of the overall trends within the industry, and this year is no exception. From that perspective, vendors are talking about testing trends that include virtualizing heterogeneous networks (Azimuth), preparing for the necessary scale and performance to meet cloud infrastructure service level agreements (Spirent), wireless charging for devices (Keysight) and maximizing spectrum investments (Anritsu).
I had a chance to talk with both Anritsu and Azimuth Systems about products they announced last week at CTIA, and how those reflect ongoing trends and needs in the wireless space.
One of Anritsu’s new products is a remote spectrum analyzer. It can be deployed as an individual device or, more interestingly, as a network of devices that could be mounted around a city or an international border at 2- to 3-mile intervals to provide a cloud-based, comprehensive view of spectrum assets and interferers, according to Angus Robinson, product marketing manager with Anritsu.
“It gives you a full view of spectrum from a single location,” he said, adding that such a capability is of interest both to regulatory agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission and mobile operators seeking to safeguard their spectrum investments — or even for security scenarios such as, say, monitoring the use of spectrum around a prison or near trains that rely on specific wireless frequencies as part of their control mechanisms, he added. Robinson said that the analyzer also has potential implications for use in LTE-U, both in ability to provide a regional spectrum survey for baseline information prior to LTE-U being deployed, and being able to assess how LTE-U and Wi-Fi were competing for spectrum use.
In hetnets, one of the ongoing challenges is how to reduce cost and deal with their complexity. Azimuth says that lab solutions for re-creating hetnet environments have been unwieldy and expensive to this point, involving multiple pieces of equipment and a complex set-up with limited ability to control interfering cells. In response, the company developed its Virtual Network Environment, which can support up to 12 configurable interfering cells in a single box for hetnet testing in the lab.
Vivek Vadakkapputtu, VP of product management and marketing for Azimuth, said that the system is meant to help reduce costs by enabling more hetnet testing to be conducted in the lab versus in the field and forcing devices to deal with closed subscriber group small cells. Simple channel and link emulation isn’t sufficient for today’s complex networks, he added.
Keysight added software that provides analysis for wireless power transfer analysis that addresses the growing trend of wireless charging for smart devices. There is growing consumer awareness of the fact that there is an alternative to cord-based charging, and a number of companies are exploring that feature, including a line of home furnishings from Ikea. In particular, the wireless charging market is expected to be boosted by the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge.Two of the product announcements mentioned above came this week: Keysight addressing the emerging market for wireless charging technologies, and Spirent Communications launching a test solution for the ability to “hyperscale” virtual machines for cloud infrastructure-related testing.
Spirent also launched a new solution aimed at helping service providers make sure they meet their cloud infrastructure service level agreements. HyperScale “with the hopes of achieving scalability, agility and efficiency, every data center – big or small – is going through a phenomenal transformation with enablers like virtualization, cloud, hyperconvergence, and software-defined everything,” said Malathi Malla, director of product marketing at Spirent Communications, in a statement. “All of these enabling technologies come at a cost of adding complexity; as a result, capacity planning becomes an educated guess at best. While there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to this approach, a great starting point is to move beyond the arbitrary projections, by leveraging Spirent’s HyperScale test solution to measure performance and capacity with realistic loads.”
In other testing news this week:
– Keysight Technologies launched a new low-frequency vector network analyzer line, the ENA series, that start at $10,000. The equipment is aimed at testing filters, antennas, cables and PCBs. Keysight also introduced what it’s calling the industry’s fastest arbitrary waveform generator.
-Spirent’s device intelligence unit, Tweakker, is going to have its Fit4Market “instant connectivity” solution embedded in all Android devices built by Sky Devices, a U.S. phone manufacturer that focuses on unlocked phones for the GSM market as well as low-cost LTE smartphones. Fit4Market ensures that devices properly connect to wireless networks, and acccording to Spirent, it “covers all access point name (APN) configuration settings of all networks be they mobile network operators (MNOs) or mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs).” The solution gets frequent automatic updates and is designed to reduce field testing costs on devices.
– The Telecommunications Industry Association has two new board members, one of whom is Susan Schram, VP of sales and channel effectiveness at Viavi Solutions (formerly JDSU’s network and service enablement business).
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