P3 Communications is doubling its interference hunting team
P3 Communications plans to double the size of its interference hunting team over the next year and expand the geographic areas in which it operates, to help operators deal with an increasingly complex radio frequency environment.
Michael Schwab, vice president of radio access engineering for P3
communications, said that the company expects that the proliferation of internet of things devices is likely to mean that there is more interference in both licensed and unlicensed spectrum. There will be many different types of devices using various spectrum bands, Schwab said, adding, “We assume there will be lots of noisy equipment. … There will be devices, even if they have a sticker that says they are compliant, under certain circumstances they make noise” — sometimes because a chip has malfunctioned or if the device overheats. He said that P3 has already helped companies identify some issues with IoT devices: in one case, a deployment of smart power meters began generating narrowband noise that was so bad that they all had to be replaced with devices from a different manufacturer.
Schwab went on to say that while “the third party equipment we use to analyze spectrum is pretty standard these days”, it’s the people and their experience in
network testing and RF interference hunting that make the difference. “Using that equipment in a way that gets to the root of the problem, while saving time and money for the network operators we support, requires engineering know-how and a great deal of experience. It’s as much art as science,” Schwab said.
In addition, Schwab said, the job isn’t done when the noise source is identified — engineers often have to sweet-talk their way into businesses or private residences and then persuade people to turn off the device producing interference. Sometimes those are baby monitors or fluorescent light ballasts, but in other cases people may be illegally operating cell phone jammers or Global Positioning System jammers — AT&T ran into that situation in Dallas recently when it had tried to get a nearby business owner from operating a cell phone jammer to keep employees from using their mobile devices at work and was impacting AT&T’s network. It took bringing in the Federal Communications Commission Enforcement Bureau to get the issue resolved — and the business owner even tried to sell the offending jammer to the FCC. The FCC announced a $22,000 fine this week in that case.
In other test news:
– Test and measurement-related services are becoming increasingly important to the industry, according to new research from analyst firm Frost & Sullivan.
Frost concluded that testing companies “are focusing on platform-centric business models that effectively integrate hardware, software analytics and services” in a strategy that “[considers] all interactions users have around the test product” and “generates new ways for T&M companies to maximize test equipment value.”
“The value from a service-based business will come from monetizing the decision making and intelligence that is extracted from the data produced by a platform-centric business model,” said Mariano Kimbara, industry analyst for Frost & Sullivan Test and Measurement 2.0. “Hence, a robust data strategy that involves open partnerships with software analytics is vital for T&M companies to create new revenue streams.”
– NetScout is leveraging its network security company Arbor Networks (acquired from Danaher in 2014) to enter the threat analysis market. NetScout announced this week that it has integrated its real-time network information platform, ISNG, with the Arbor Networks Spectrum threat analysis solution.
With this integration, NetScout “converts high-volume network traffic into high value, multi-dimensional metadata in real time” — which the company calls “smart data” and puts that data in the context of network performance across physical, cloud and hybrid network environments, the company said — and that data feeds Arbor Network Spectrum
-Meanwhile, Spirent Communications is working with security companies and certification labs for a standardized approach to to network security testing performance. The new, open NetSecOPEN effort is aimed at moving the space beyond propriety performance testing for security appliances to vendor-neutral test standards that evaluate appliances in the context of real-world conditions. and test real-world conditions
–Ixia is also focused on security, this week announcing that it has added Active Security Sockets Layer technology to its security and visibility intelligence solution. Active SSL “enables organizations to see inside traffic encrypted with ephemeral key to ensure the security of their networks,” Ixia said.
–National Instruments is boosting its development support for multiple-input multiple-output antenna systems — up to and including massive MIMO — with its new MIMO Application Framework. NI said that the framework, in conjunction with NI software-defined radio hardware, can be used to explore and prototype single-user MIMO, multi-user MIMO and massive MIMO and look at beamforming techniques at both the base station and the user equipment level.
-The Wireless Innovation Forum, which supports spectrum sharing at 3.5 GHz, has released procedures, forms and a website for registering air interfaces for the Citizens Broadband Radio Service band, as well as measurement types and capabilities to ensure proper sharing within the band.
Preston Marshall of Google, who is chair of WInnForum’s spectrum sharing committe, said in a statement that “this process achieves the critical goal of ensuring that the CBRS band ecosystem is open to new technologies and applications. It does not have any barriers to the introduction of new innovations in a manner that preserves the utility of the band for both new and existing users.”
–GL Communications has added features including handover management and CSV-based customer profiles to its MAPS GSM A over IP interface emulator to test network elements and signalling.
-The Universal Serial Bus Promoter Group said that it new USB 3.2 standard is close to being released, which will increase USB speeds by allowing up to two lanes of operation, each at either 5 gigabits per second or 10 Gbps and “effectively doubling the performance across existing cables”. The new specification is in final review, the group said, and is expected to be formally released during a USB Developer Day event in September.
