Verizon captured P3 Group’s “Best in Test” title for the fourth time in a row, turning in the best score that the test company has recorded in its testing of the U.S. market.
Verizon scored 933 on P3’s 1,000-point scale, followed by T-Mobile US at 908, Sprint at 864 and AT&T at 856.
The conclusions were based on 54.2 billion crowd-sourced samples at the device level, taken over six months, according to P3 Group. That data came from a user base of about 1.9 million devices which provided relevant data, out of P3’s overall base of 3 million. P3’s measurement app is integrated with more than 900 Android applications; it operates in the background on user devices and sends reports every 15 minutes, the company said. P3 said that its testing covered 99.2% of urban areas in the U.S. and 86.1% of non-urban geographic areas.
“For several years, we have been analyzing mobile networks in the U.S. from different perspectives. The results this year are the highest we have ever measured in the U.S. Verizon is clearly ahead. However, T-Mobile is showing significant improvements and positioning itself as a strong second,” said Hakan Ekmen, CEO of P3, in a statement.
Verizon took the overall spot, as well as the best ranking in voice coverage, data coverage and 4G coverage.
“People and business partners have always known us for our superior network, but we never take that for granted and work to continuously improve. As these latest results show, our 4G network performance is the best it’s ever been,” said Heidi Hemmer, Verizon’s VP of network and technology, in a statement on the test results. “That’s a performance we’re proud of.”
In other test news:
-The Ethernet Alliance said that its high-speed networking interoperability plugfest event in April achieved a pass rate of 97.5% in functional interoperability tests and 100% in Frame Error Rate testing. Equipment tested came from 13 different companies and supported speeds ranging from 25 Gbps to 400 Gbps, and included both electrical and optical interconnects; new signaling and modulation technologies; switches and NICs; cabling; and test and measurement solutions and methodologies, according to Ethernet Alliance.
This is the alliance’s third in a series of HSN plugfests; it was held at the University of New Hampshire’s InterOperability Lab. The next one will be held in October.
-Speaking of UNH-IOL, the lab has added Wi-Fi testing to the latest version of its Test Sentinel automation platform, which also supports Gfast certification and DSL testing. The Wi-Fi testing support includes Broadband Forum’s TR-38 in-premise performance test plan for Wi-Fi as well as full support for octoScope’s wireless test beds, according to UNH-IOL. The organization said that it expects that Test Sentinel’s Wi-Fi testing support will “continue to grow and expand with additional tests scripts to be included in future releases.”
-The laboratory of cellular IoT chipset company Altair Semiconductor has officially been authorized as a test lab by the Global Certification Forum and can offer conformance testing to third parties.
Levana Asraf Fouks, director of system validation and customer support at Altair, said that the company plans to “use our authorized lab to maintain interoperability with 3GPP and certification requirements while keeping the highest degree of quality of our products. … By combining conformance and interoperability tests undertaken in laboratories on multiple live networks, GCF’s authorization of the Altair’s laboratory will make us a standout player in the global marketplace.”
Altair is a Sony Group company.
–Kaelus has integrated its equipment with cloud-based reporting and workflow software from ECSite, including a mobile application. Subbu Meiyappan, CEO and co-Founder of ECSite, said that the software has been deployed in production with Kaelus’ iVA and iPA instruments, with over 1,000 tests performed in that configuration.
-Canadian test equipment company SignalCraft Technologies has introduced a new Common Public Radio Interface analyzer, which it describes as combining high performance with low cost. The SIQMA SC2820 CPRI analyzer “delivers interference detection capabilities that capture every CPRI frame while offering simultaneous antenna support without sacrificing performance,” SignalCraft said.
“We are excited to announce the industry’s best-performing CPRI analyzer at such an affordable price. By focusing on one application – CPRI analysis – we’re able to bring advanced performance to users who need world-class analysis on a limited budget,” said Bernard Gobeil, SCT president and co-founder, in a statement.
-The enterprise wired and wireless test business that was formerly part of NetScout Systems (and before that, part of Fluke Networks) this week relaunched its brand as a standalone company called NetAlly. Read the full story here.
–Keysight Technologies is providing 5G network emulation to help device maker TCL Communication validate its 5G New Radio designs. TCL Communication’s products include TCL, Alcatel and BlackBerry-branded devices. Keysight said that TCL is using its 5G network emulation to develop and test products including 5G smartphones and USB data terminals as well as 5G customer premise equipment and 5G+8K QLED televisions.
