Benchmarking and engineering company P3 Communications is expanding its working relationship with InfoVista. The two companies have been working together for nearly a year on some joint services on benchmarking the performance of new network services such as voice and video over LTE. Now they will be expanding their work together on offering mobile network benchmarking services globally.
The partnerships combines P3’s measurement capabilities with InfoVista’s TEMS solutions for network monitoring, testing and optimization, which it purchased from Ascom in late 2016.
“Within the last year, we have established a real partnership intensifying the level of effort and commitment from both companies. InfoVista’s leading network benchmarking tools are a perfect match for P3’s leading benchmarking services”, said Hakan Ekmen, P3 CEO.
In other test news:
–EXFO showcased its new SkyRAN remote access monitoring solution for fiber-based fronthaul at Verizon’s Technology Users Forum this week in Austin, Tex. SkyRAN is applicable to macro sites with fronthaul fiber links, distributed antenna systems with many fiber links, and centralized Radio Access Network configurations, according to EXFO. The solution combines radio frequency over the Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) analysis with fiber monitoring so that, as EXFO’s VP for Test and Measurement Stéphane Chabot put it, “technicians can troubleshoot from their desks or get equipped with actionable data through analytics before arriving on-site, if a truck roll is still necessary.”
“A solution like SkyRAN will become even more critical as the mobile industry begins to transform their networks in preparation for 5G, which will rely on highly dense networks resulting in an increase of RF interference sources,” EXFO said.
–Chroma Systems Solutions, based in southern California, will now offer Tektronix products including oscilloscopes, analyzers, and signal generators in addition to Chroma’s own test offerings in power conversation and electrical safety testing.
– AstroNova Test and Measurement launched a new TMX data acquisition system with Windows 10 and a high-speed oscilloscope. Windows 10 security features allow the system to meet Department of Defense requirements for cybersecurity, the company noted.
–National Instruments has a new high-density source measure unit for testing semiconductor components, with six times more DC channel density than its previous PXI models. The PXIe-4163 can be used in semiconductor test system configurations or in standalone PXI systems, NI said.
“Highly disruptive technologies like 5G, the Internet of Things and autonomous vehicles place continued pressure on semiconductor organizations to evolve and adopt more efficient approaches to semiconductor test – from the lab environment to the production floor,” said Eric Starkloff, NI’s executive VP of global sales and marketing, who added that “semiconductor test is a strategic focus for NI.”
–Spirent Communications jointly tested foundational 5G network transmission and service elements with Chinese Ethernet switching chipset and software-defined networking whitebox company Centec Networks. According to the two companies, the tests focused on “validating Interconnection, Fast Re-Route (FRR) and Segment Routing capabilities of Centec E550 Platform under 100G/50G/25G speeds” and leveraged Spirent’s TestCenter network performance tester with the DX3-100GQ-T12 multi-rate testing module. That particular module supports 12 40G or 100G ports, 24 50G ports, or 48 25G ports and both traditional routing and switching or SDN technologies such as OpenFlow and segment routing.
Spirent also this week announced that it has added support for the Chinese BeiDou satellite navigation system Phase 3 signals to its global navigation satellite systems radio frequency constellation simulators. The first two Beidou-3 satellites were launched in late 2017 and according to Spirent, “will extend [BeiDou’s] coverage from Asia to the whole world, and will provide receiver developers and integrators with additional GNSS signals to make positioning, navigation and timing systems more accurate, and help to support new applications, such as autonomous vehicles. The new signals will use the same carrier frequencies as the GPS and Galileo systems, so chipset manufacturers and device developers will need to test integrated designs to avoid problems caused by confusing data from different GNSS.”
“By offering the BeiDou Phase 3 signals, our customers can test their designs well before the system is fully operational, which is expected in 2020,” said Stuart Smith, Spirent’s lead product manager. “With signals already starting to appear, it is important for developers to have test tools that can ensure devices will successfully make use of all GNSS signals.”
