Reader Forum: Moving to 4G: Why test automation is no longer an option

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reader Forum section. In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers we have created this forum for those with something meaningful to say to the wireless industry. We want to keep this as open as possible, but maintain some editorial control so as to keep it free of commercials or attacks. Please send along submissions for this section to our editors at: dmeyer@ardenmediaco.com or tford@ardenmediaco.com.
Today, we are using 10 times more bandwidth than we did three years ago. With demand for high-speed wireless growing, every major carrier will soon need to offer 4G technology to remain competitive.
Moving to 4G, however, presents several testing issues driven by growing network complexity, customer demands, and fierce market competition. Given these challenges, test automation is no longer an option for carriers seeking to bring quality products and services to market quickly.
Many organizations still rely on manual testing practices, but this approach cannot effectively scale to meet 4G testing requirements. The new 4G infrastructure equipment is far more complex than what carriers have today. And the inefficiencies inherent in manual processes make it difficult for teams to handle the volume and complexity of testing required by 4G. Often these organizations hire more testers as device complexity increases, but this provides only short-term relief and has proven to be an expensive and unsustainable solution.
In addition to mounting complexity, testers need to be concerned about application performance. With 4G, consumers expect easy access to everything from Twitter to e-mail to video from their wireless devices. As a result, consumers will be judging service quality based on application performance rather than traditional phone service. Carriers will consequently need to increase their testing requirements by an order of magnitude to deliver the high application performance consumers demand — and avoid Clearwire-type outages.
At the same time, innovation and churn are pushing for shorter timelines. With new cellphones released every three to six months, and new roll outs for carriers performed every three to four years, testing teams are struggling to keep pace with development. Time-intensive manual testing is putting organizations at risk of falling behind competitors and releasing products or services with quality issues. And without high-quality connections, access, and handoffs, carriers will not be able to deliver 4G speed.
To tackle these challenges, carriers and device manufacturers will need to optimize their quality processes. Automated testing can help them work together more efficiently and release high-quality products and services on the 4G platform.
Shareable test assets: Automated testing tools enable users to standardize test assets — from setup procedures to interoperability tests and results — and share these common assets within a single testing organization and with partner organizations. Device manufacturers and carriers can create test assets that they can easily share with each other, modify, and use throughout the quality process.
These efficiencies save time, but the real value is faster resolution — and faster time to market. For example, if a carrier runs the same tests as the device manufacturer but with different results, the carrier can quickly determine that the problem is a setup issue, not a device bug. Once the device is producing the expected results, the carrier can begin interoperability testing, and, if any problems arise, send the test back to the device manufacturer. This allows the device manufacturer to see what was failing and in what context, and recreate the problem.
Scaling to meet growing complexity and volume: Test automation offers organizations a way to work more efficiently to meet growing testing requirements and shorter deadlines, while delivering the quality customers expect. However, home-grown automation solutions are not ideal for testing next-generation devices and networks.
Many home-grown automation solutions rely on aging scripting technology, such as Tcl, which not only limits how and what organizations can test, but also impedes communications and requires scripting expertise to use. For example, nearly all new 4G equipment will have a GUI (Web, java, Flash, or Windows), which cannot be easily tested with old scripting technology. In addition, because scripting is essentially a coding language, it is difficult to transfer work and present it in an easy-to-understand format, leading to additional cycles and back and forth. To effectively use scripting, organizations need team members well-versed in coding basics, but not many testers possess that skill set. Finally, new tests involving hundreds of devices and triple-play scenarios need actions to happen concurrently, and scripting cannot meet this requirement.
By using modern automated testing tools, testers can create new tests quickly and easily, regardless of their skill levels. Scripting expertise is not required, and documentation is generated automatically. All testers — from feature testers to regression testers — can then leverage these tests throughout the quality process.
Organizations also can use automated testing tools to efficiently manage and run complex testing processes. With little more than a click of a mouse, they can schedule tests to run around the clock, allowing them to more effectively utilize their expensive test labs while eliminating the need for all-night supervision by tired, error-prone testers.
Automated testing allows organizations to be more agile, to easily adapt and scale their testing processes to meet the influx of complex testing requirements for 4G and future technologies. They not only can keep pace with technological changes, but they also can maximize their existing resources and expertise.
Above all, by automating testing processes, carriers and device manufacturers can deliver quality products and services to market faster and more cost-effectively, while keeping their mutual customers happy.