Anritsu has added 2×2 multiple-input multiple-output testing capabilities for 802.11ac to its MT8862A test equipment and says that with new software, it can test 2×2 MIMO on Wi-Fi equipment under “actual operating conditions,” along with output signal quality, transmit power and receiver sensitivity.
Two of the MT8862A test sets are required for the test set-up. Anritsu said that the test set is the first equipment available that measuring 802.11ac devices-under-test in their actual operating state, with built-in network mode measurement capabilities that examine radio frequency performance and waveform coverage range through over-the-air measurements.
“Removal of a physical connection establishes a more accurate representation of the DUT performance in a real-world environment, as the measurements take into consideration the effect of the internal wireless antennas,” Anritsu said.
In other test news:
–Ixia, part of Keysight Technologies, claims to be the first to ship a 400 gigabit Ethernet test system with multi-rate speed options (200/100/50 GE) that support speeds based on the IEEE 802.3bs and 802.3cd draft standards, at multiple speeds from a single port.
“The demand for bandwidth intensive data center services such as 4K video and 5G mobile network services is pushing data center and network operators to equipment with the smallest footprint, lowest power consumption, and fastest electrical interfaces,” Ixia said, adding that network elements need to be able to operate at all standard-specified speeds and saying that its K400 QSFP-DD load module can validate the new 200GE, 100GE and 50 GE interfaces that are emerging.
Ixia also said this week that its Vision One and Vision 7303 network packet brokers have received NAIP Common Criteria certification in the U.S., meeting security requirements for federal purchases.
–Rohde & Schwarz was part of recent 5G testing Shaw Communications; read the full story here.
-If you missed RCR’s coverage of NI Week, check out these stories on 5G testing and development and NI’s promise for more software releases.
–Spirent Communications said that its Velocity lab-as-a-service solution is being used by Chinese optical communications equipment company FiberHome. Spirent said that “in a typical week, FiberHome sets up hundreds of testbeds in its networking test labs” and that its previous approach was complicated and resulted in set-up times that took longer than the tests themselves. Velocity has “completely automated” the set-up process for such testbed and reduced set-up times from more than a week, to minutes.
Spirent also announced this week that its global navigation satellite systems testing systems now work with automotive systems test tools from dSpace, which produces automotive engineering solutions. DSpace’s products are commonly used in hardware-in-the-loop testing for connected and autonomous vehicles, Spirent said, and the integration of a real-time, low-latency custom module from Spirent takes vehicle output information such as trajectory and transmits that to Spirent equipment for precisely correlated simulated GNSS or GPS positioning signals.
–Rootmetrics continues to look at how carrier networks stack up in individual markets across the U.S. Following recent analysis of cellular networks in the Washington, D.C. metro area, Rootmetrics focused this week on Denver. The company conducted tests between April 9-April 13 at 61 locations in Denver and over 1,000 miles of drive-testing, and concluded that Verizon and T-Mobile US share the top spot for network performance in the Denver metro area.
“Verizon and T-Mobile rocked the mobile performance race in Denver during this testing period,” said Doug King, director of business development at RootMetrics, in a statement. “Both carriers swept up awards across the mobile categories, but data performance had the most interesting results. All four carriers made speed improvements and it’s clear they are making big investments to support consumers’ mobile needs.”
Rootmetrics found that AT&T had the fastest median download speed at 30.4 Mbps, with Verizon close behdin at 28.2 Mbps; the testing company noted that AT&T “saw a significant jump in its median download speed from RootMetrics’ last report, increasing from 16.3 Mbps to 30.4 Mbps.” Fastest median upload speeds belonged to AT&T at 12.8 Mbps and 12.2 Mbps, respectively. AT&T did well in network speeds, but its performance across other Rootmetrics measurements put T-Mobile US and Verizon in the top spots — read more details here.
–GL Communications came out with new software designed to deal with voice echoes and delay caused by variations in network backhaul systems. GL’s new Echo Mitigation System (EMS) software is designed to be deployed within backhaul networks.
Vijay Kulkarni, GL’s CEO, said in a statement that variations in delay can cause gaps in speech and that the EMS software “allows for the measurement of delay from each site of a group of radio sites as well as the application of offsetting delays to mitigate the echo impairment.”
–Tom’s Guide conducted drop-tests of popular smartphones, from heights ranging from four to six feet onto wood and concrete surfaces (with additional drops from 100 feet just for funsies) and concluded that the Motorola Moto Z2 Force was the toughest among those tested. Apple’s iPhone SE (a 2016 device) fared most poorly in the drop tests. You can read the full results here (spoiler alert: you should have a screen protector on your device for the best chance of it surviving a drop unscathed!).
