Sprint will work with New York University Wireless for mobile “5G” development, in a partnership announced this week.
Sprint is joining the university’s 5G research center as an industry affiliate sponsor and weill get early access to research, work with students and faculty on 5G-related projects, and will contribute its own technical expertise in areas such as use cases, network design and architectural requirements for both core and Radio Access Networks and 5G devices.
“We’re focused on delivering mobile 5G in late 2019 using our 2.5 GHz spectrum to provide broad nationwide 5G coverage with millimeter wave bands serving as high-capacity, high-throughput hotspots,” said Dr. Ron Marquardt, Sprint’s VP of technology, in a statement. “Our work with NYU Wireless will be instrumental for practical use of this spectrum and ensuring strong integration between these bands.”
In other test news:
–Keysight Technologies expanded its “5G” testing support this week, launching a protocol analysis tool that it claims is the first such tool for protocol analysis in next-generation, millimeter-wave-based systems. Keysight said that the toolset is first in a series of 5G network emulation offerings and supports testing of beamforming in mmWave and full access to layer 1 and 2 parameters for protocol testing.
Keysight also added a broadband mmWave network analyzer-based offering for characterizing designs, with system-level accuracy up to 120 GHz.
–Anritsu introduced a Universal Fixture Extraction option for its VectorStar vector network analyzers for improving fixture calibration and conduct on-wafer device characterization. In field testing, the company added a 100G module to its Network Master Pro 1000A field testing system — which includes 25G Ethernet support as well a new Video Inspection Probe for optical network inspection and image capture, Cat 6/6a cable test support and the ability to identify other Network Master units on the network and automate testing between them. The addition of the new features, Anritsu said, means that its handheld solution “covers all current testing needs associated with data center, core, metro, access, mobile backhaul and mobile fronthaul networks.”
-Check out our coverage from NI Week, including the company’s announcements on time-sensitive networking, the new LabVIEW release and some company perspective on the future beyond 5G. In addition, NI also launched a set of 28 GHz radio heads for its mmWave transceiver system, which the company said “creates the first commercially available full transceiver of its kind that can transmit and/or receive wide-bandwidth signals of up to 2 GHz of bandwidth in real time, covering spectrum from 27.5 GHz to 29.5 GHz.”
–Accedian released a new version of its Skylight performance assurance offering that includes the ability to monitor virtual network functions’ performance with microsecond-level precision, the company said, as well as measurement reporting capabilities in seconds.
–PCTel is enabling interference hunting at 600 MHz, with new support for radio frequency signal measurements for spectrum clearing and propagation validation via its IBflex scanning receiver and SeeWave interference locating system.
“Smooth network rollouts require spectrum that is clear of interfering signals. As many operators experienced, interference was a major problem for LTE networks on 700 MHz spectrum, which was also previously allocated to broadcast networks. We expect operators to encounter similar issues at 600 MHz,” said Jeff Miller, PCTEL’s SVP and GM for RF solutions.
–Ethernet Alliance launched a new certification program (pdf) for power over Ethernet interoperability based on the IEEE 802.3 standard, as well as a new membership class with a PoE focus so that companies interested in the certification program can become members of the organization. The alliance said that a PoE certification event is in the works, to be hosted at the University of New Hampshire’ InterOperability Lab in October of this year.
-Antenna provider Taoglas has two new Global Positioning Systems certification testing services, which are required for Google’s new “Street View auto ready” specifications. The company said that it worked with Google to develop the performance requirements and test methodology that establishes whether a device can deliver accurately positioned 360-degree video.
–Empirix’s Hammer test system turns 25 this week, having evolved from an automated voicemail testing solution to emulating complex call center interactions and test mobile and voice applications. The company recently released the newest version of Hammer, which includes support for Skype for Business and speech-to-text transcription.
–Kazan Networks chose Viavi Solutions’ Xgig 1000 analyzer to test Kazan’s advanced storage technology based on the Nonvolatile Memory Express over Fabrics standard in a disaggregated compute/storage architecture, in which Ethernet is used to enable servers to access solid state drives with NVMe.
–GL Communications introduced new capabilities for its MEGACO protocol emulator to simulate trunking and residential gateways.
–Astronics launched a new “system in a box” PXI integration platform.
