BROWSING: Test and Measurement

Drone company DJI says that for the first time, drones have been used to safely deliver equipment to climbers on Mount Everest and remove trash from the mountain. DJI completed test flights in April on Everest with its FlyCart 30, which carried three oxygen...

In modern networks, timing and synchronization are increasingly important due to the deployment of TDD midband spectrum for 5G and the demand for precise coordination for features like carrier aggregation, massive MIMO and positioning. As MNOs focus on optimizing and densifying 5G networks, and as...

High-penetration FWA areas actually have better performance than low-penetration FWA areas, Opensignal found 5G Fixed Wireless Access has "reshaped" the broadband market in the United States, moving into mainstream adoption and intensifying competition, according to new analysis from Opensignal. And while there have been concerns...

Timing and synchronization are crucial to customer experience, because timing & sync errors in 5G TDD networks can severely degrade a site’s ability to provide consistent call quality and good data performance.  “The kind of problem that a timing issue will create is very similar...

Viavi Solutions launched new UTC timing services this week, which rely on L-Band and Ku-Band satellite signals but operate "completely independently" of traditional GPS and GNSS. The new altGNNS GEO and SecureTimeSM services are "extremely difficult to jam or spoof and leads the industry...

Test company beat its own guidance but numbers were generally down year-on-year Keysight Technologies beat its own guidance for its fiscal second quarter and expects revenues to be stable with modest increases in orders during the second half of the year. Orders for the fiscal...

Test equipment companies Rohde & Schwarz and Viavi Solutions are expanding the joint solutions offered via their two-year-old collaboration on joint lab testing solutions. In particular, they are focusing on addressing test needs in Open RAN and Non-Terrestrial Networks. In terms of Open RAN,...

As networks continue to evolve from classical, monolithic architectures to cloud-native, disaggregated networks, the way we test networks needs to evolve too in this more software-centric environment, to ensure that new 5G-specific services can be guaranteed for end users. RCR Wireless News' latest report, companion piece...

A new NPRM from the FCC will propose bringing rules on test lab certification in line with federal law on secure networks The Federal Communications Commission will vote at its open meeting on Thursday on a proposal meant to ensure that the hundreds of labs...

Northeastern University's Open6G OTIC, which is among a cohort of Open Testing and Integration Centers (OTICs) certified by O-RAN Alliance last year, announced this week that its testing and integration capabilities are open for business, touting the facility as a "one-stop shop for Open...

The rise of Open RAN, where multi-vendor radio systems comprising centralized, distributed and radio units are made interoperable, is now decidedly mainstream. Following early commercial deployments from greenfield operators, Open RAN is scaling out in brownfield networks. In addition to the pre-deployment interoperability work,...

Keysight Technologies this week announced that it has added a software option that will enable pulse generation capabilities to its FieldFox handheld radio frequency analyzer, including the ability to generate FM chirps, AM pulses, FM triangles, continuous wave signals and custom sequences. Keysight said that...

5G enterprise services are changing the network testing dynamic completely New enterprise services like private networks and network slicing have been at the center of conversations around how telcos can monetize 5G. However, offering these services introduces network complexities that, according to panelists as the...

LitePoint focused on testing Open RAN MIMO radio units as a whole rather than antenna-by-antenna As operators look to maximize spectrum utilization and deliver strong quality of experience to users, multi-antenna MIMO radio units have become mainstays in global radio access networks (RANs). LitePoint has...

When it comes to over-the-air (OTA) testing, more test points equals more test time, says NI Chief Systems R&D Engineer When it comes to over-the-air (OTA) testing, more test points equals more test time, and this has never been more true than in the case...

EXFO and Verizon on how to effectively resolve PIM issues that impact network performance and drive up opex Passive intermodulation (PIM) is a huge headache for mobile network operators. PIM can materially impact network performance while also costing operators time and money as they work...

Spirent is already taking steps to automate service assurance in carrier networks At the recent Test & Measurement Forum, Spirent Communications Senior Director of Assurance Strategy Ross Cassan laid out key networking trends that are impacting service assurance and how the company is amending its...

With the continued evolution of 5G, close-in priorities for operators are understanding the why and how of 5G-Advanced, working with satellite providers on Non-terrestrial networks (NTN), and setting the stage for the commercialization of 6G in the 2030 timeframe. And before any of this...

The latest test and measurement trends include Non-terrestrial and Open RAN networks To set the stage for the Test and Measurement Forum (available on demand here), Emil Olbrich, vice president of network technologies with Signals Research Group (SRG), laid out some of the market trends...

In partnership with Northeastern University, VIAVI is also using AI for city-scale network digital twins Operators, generally, are currently (and have been for some time) going through a number of significant transformations, chief among them the shift to cloud-native 5G Standalone and the disaggregation of...

Spirent Communications, which is in the process of being acquired, gave a market update this week that indicated the company is still facing a tough trajectory. "Market conditions remain challenging, with market drivers in line with the previous 12 months," the company said in...

The O-RAN Alliance has kicked off its spring plugfest to further develop Open RAN features and ensure interoperability across the O-RAN ecosystem, with more than 40 companies participating around the world. This spring's plugfest has six areas of focus, according to O-RAN Alliance. They...

Use of advanced modulation is a first for FDD, partners say Samsung Networks and Qualcomm have used advanced modulation as defined in 3GPP Release 17 to boost downlink speeds by about 20% compared to the use of 256 QAM. The lab test, conducts at Samsung's research...

The commercial highlights an AT&T satellite-to-cellular service In the most recent of a series of ongoing tests with AT&T, AST SpaceMobile streamed one of the carrier's commercials from space to a smartphone. The two companies are conducting tests via AST SpaceMobile's BlueWalker 3 satellite, which is...