Rohde and Schwarz says it has developed the first tester for measuring over-the-air transmit power in millimeter wave frequencies, with support for development of both cellular “5G” and the frequencies planned for use in 802.11ad and 802.11ay.
The NRPM OTA power measurement test solution has an antenna module and a three-channel sensor module designed to support measurement of up to three antenna modules. It works between 27.5 GHz and 75 GHz – so it covers the 28 GHz band Verizon is focusing on for 5G development – as well as 802.11ad in 55 GHz to 66 GHz and 802.11ay.
In other test news:
-The First Responders Network Authority opened a testing lab in Boulder, Colorado, for exploring and verifying the performance of network features, applications and devices to be used on the future national public safety LTE network known as FirstNet. Full story here.
–Viavi Solutions this week demonstrated virtual testing capabilities as part of a proof-of-concept showcase for multicarrier, multiplatform bandwidth-on-demand provisioning at Metro Ethernet Forum 2016. The demo involved walking through how a customer could order a circuit via web portal that would be provisioned through three different carriers into a cloud provider data center on another continent and get an app up and under monitoring with little human involvement. Viavi provided virtualized testing and performance monitoring in the cloud and at the customer edge.
“Network technology is well down the path of virtualization and all members of the ecosystem need to adapt accordingly,” said Kevin Oliver, VP and GM for converged instruments and virtual test at Viavi, in a statement. “However, there are two market requirements that must also drive development: interoperability, and streamlined ability to address hybrid configurations of physical and virtual networks.”
–Accedian Networks used MEF2016 to highlight service lifecycle tools for near real-time, end-to-end monitoring of services and network performance in a demo with CenturyLink. Keith Donahue, VP for product management and marketing Accedian, said in a statement that “the technologies we showcase have been field proven in some of the most demanding circuits, in some of the most diverse regions that CenturyLink services. These are locations where performance visibility is critical for remote troubleshooting, validated service activation and performance optimization. It allows an efficient partnership to be established between partner carriers.”
–Mercedes-Benz last week held its fifth hackathon at its facility in Menlo Park, California, with a focus on machine learning for intelligent transportation and mobility concept development for its Mercedes-Benz Vans division.
The winning team developed a fleet management optimization app designed to allow users to assess vehicle damage using a smartphone to take a 360-degree visual shot of the vehicle; the app then combs the data to reference models to identify possible damage and assess whether there is a need for repair. The second-place team focused on machine learning-based fleet routing for electric cars with an app designed to asses the usage of the vehicle battery based on its weight and size along with current traffic conditions and driving style of the driver, then suggested an energy-saving route or the location of the nearest charging station. Third place went to a team that used “internet of things” sensors, route information and driver profiles to predict maintenance intervals.
-The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory this week launched three new consortia to address time-sensitive networking needs in Ethernet networks for the automotive, industrial and professional audio-visual markets. The Automotive Networking, Industrial Networking and ProAV Networking consortia will focus on testing and verifying Ethernet-based precise timing, guaranteed bandwidth and guaranteed worst-case latency needs for those specific verticals.
UNH-IOL said that in the automotive market, autonomous vehicles and advanced driver assistance system requirements in particular are driving time-sensitive networking demand.
-Home security vendor Canary was the first company with a product receiving ICSA Labs’ security certification for IoT. Canary’s solution pairs a high-definition camera, siren and air monitor with a smartphone app allowing users to remotely monitor their homes as well as set off an alarm and notify policy if necessary.
Concern over the security of IoT devices has been top-of-mind across the industry with recent high-profile denial of service attacks fueled by unsecured IoT devices. ICSA Labs, an independent division of Verizon Communications, launched its IoT security certification program earlier this year.
–Rohde and Schwarz this week demonstrated a test offering for remote keyless entry at the Electronica conference.
–Napatech and Ntop released a case study on their collaboration to provide a new solution for 100G network visibility for a global data center provider. The Ntop client “wanted a traffic monitoring solution that focused on both network performance measurement and security traffic analysis,” the companies said. The solution integrated Napatech’s 100G accelerators with Ntop’s NProbe Cento software for full packet capture and enablement of network data analysis.
