Test companies Anritsu, Spirent Communications and Toyo have put together a solution for evaluating the video quality of 5G devices which incorporates Anritsu’s SmartStudio NR Network Simulator and its Radio Communication Test Station Mt8000Z, with Spirent’s Attero and Umetrix Video software.
Because 5G supports higher speeds and quality that can drive more video consumption, “video quality is a key factor in users’ choice of a 5G mobile operator and smartphone brand,” the partners said in a release, adding that “Mobile operators, 5G device vendors, and content providers urgently need a solution to evaluate the video quality of 5G devices.”
In the lab-based test set-up, Anritsu’s MT8000A simulates a live 5G base station and core network with a full range of network conditions able to be simulated, including Standalone and Non-Standalone modes at both millimeter-wave and sub-6 GHz frequencies. On top of that, Spirent’s Attero software then allows stress-testing of the transport of real-time services such as video and Voice over IP, with filters that can test impairments on specific traffic types or packets, and Spirent’s Umetriz Video scores the quality-of-experience on the receive-side video quality using Video Mean Opinion Scoring (V-MOS).
In other test news:
–Anritsu says it has won two contracts with unnamed Tier 1 carriers to service assurance for 5G Standalone networks. Ralf Iding, CEO of Anritsu Service Assurance, said that the contract wins represent “an appreciation of years of strategic investment in virtualization and 5G capabilities and a company-wide digital transformation.”
“Key to securing the Tier-1 wins is our market-leading AI anomaly detection solution, which detects issues on 5G SA networks in real-time, understands why they happen, and uses smart next best actions to close the loop in 5G SA networks,” said Nicolas Timothee, Anritsu’s director of business strategy. “With the escalating complexity and dynamic nature of 5G SA networks, CSPs need automated real-time solutions for faster detection and resolution of faults. Our solutions meet this need for speed of action and combined with our performance analytics, troubleshooting and drill-down abilities, as well as our customer experience solutions, we provide the service assurance that CSPs demand.”
In other company news, Anritsu and dSPACE put together a joint demonstration of automotive simulation at MWC Barcelona this week, with an integrated 5G network emulator in a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) system for testing connected vehicles.
–Rohde & Schwarz unveiled a new oscilloscope series, the R&S RTO6, that features a 15.6-inch, full-HD touchscreen. The RTO6 is available in six different bandwidth models from 600 MHz to 6 GHz and a sample rate of up to 20 Gsample/s, the test company said.
At MWC this week, the company showcased its new R&S CMP180, a single-box tester that can handle up to 16 devices in parallel and has a range up to 8 GHz. The CMP180 can test multiple cellular and non-cellular technologies, Rohde noted — at MWC, it used the tester to demonstrate Wi-Fi 6E/Wi-Fi 7 testing. While the tester’s device capacity makes it particularly well-suited for production environments, R&S said that test engineers can use the instrument “throughout the entire development phase, from engineering validation tests right through to production.”
–Keysight Technologies‘ MWC news included a continued emphasis on 5G development and Open RAN-related solutions, including a joint Open RAN demonstration with operator TIM and JMA Wireless. It also announced this week that electronic assembly and sub-assembly company Lacroix Electronics will be using Keysight’s i7090 Massively Parallel Board Test System in its automotive printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing facility to reduce labor costs and improve throughput.
–National Instruments will be hosting a free virtual event, NI Connect, on July 27-28 that will focus on how test and data analytics can shape innovation. “Every step of the product life cycle produces valuable data, especially the real-world data from test,” said Eric Starkloff, NI CEO, in a statement. “While this test data has been historically overlooked, we believe it has the unique power to significantly enhance product performance. At NI Connect, we’ll explore the role that software and test data and analytics can play to accelerate innovation and drive performance of the world’s most important technological advancements.”
-ICYMI: In the debut episode of “Kell if I Know”, Adam Smith, director of marketing for LitePoint, discusses the ins and outs of Ultra-Wideband (UWB), then he sticks around for a walk down device memory lane that involves a PS2, Garbage Pail Kids and the “grannypanties of industrial design.” Watch here!
