Cobham Wireless announced the latest version of the industry-standard TM500 WCDMA network test system, with expanded capability to emulate four cells and hundreds of mobile terminals from a single benchtop unit. Combining six TM500 units into a rack-mount cabinet enables the network operator or infrastructure vendor to validate real data applications usage on a WCDMA network of 24 cells – supporting thousands of terminals – in a controlled laboratory environment.
 
“This latest release of the WCDMA network test system software more than doubles the number of cells and mobile user terminals each TM500 unit can support, reducing the footprint and the cost per cell for WCDMA network validation,” said Tim Beard, WCDMA product manager at Cobham Wireless. “It includes support both for TM500 Real Data Applications functionality and for path loss mobility modelling, providing the industry’s most realistic protocol stack simulator with the highest available WCDMA aggregate data rate, which is being increased to 168 Mbps.”
 
Supporting 3GPP Release 99 CS/PS, HSDPA, HSUPA, HSPA+ and Release 8 DC-HSDPA operation, the TM500 WCDMA network test system shares the same hardware platform as the TM500 LTE-A test system, allowing the same unit to be used for both 3G and 4G network validation.

The TM500 Family is a scalable test system for validating network performance as experienced by end users, across multiple cells and different radio access technologies. With integrated data services it is able to measure the complete performance of the network, from RF through to the packet core – this includes interaction with other users, the simulated RF environment and mobility, accurately replicating real-world user behaviour profiles such as web browsing, emails, downloading files, video streaming and Voice over LTE (VoLTE), together with mobility across the radio access network.
 
A set of core test case scenarios allows the user to assess the performance of network features within a loaded network environment. The TM500 Family supports multiple real stateful data applications enabling true end-to-end data generation and analysis per emulated mobile device. Test cases can easily be configured for thousands of application data flows, and allocated to different mobile device groups with different traffic profiles.
 
For more information visit www.cobham.com/wireless