LTE Testing

LTE test equipment rental provides an excellent solution for testing to standards that are in flux. Indeed in a number of areas the current development and implementation of LTE systems is running ahead of the formal 3GPP specifications. There are also gaps in the current specifications leading to a further need for flexible testing solutions provided by the rental of LTE test tools.  

Third-generation (3G) wireless systems, based on W-CDMA, are deployed all over the world. W-CDMA maintains a mid-term competitive edge by providing high-speed packet access (HSPA) in both downlink and uplink modes. To ensure competitiveness into the future, the long-term evolution (LTE) of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project’s(3GPP) UMTS is first specified in release 8 of the 3GPP specification, and covers the emerging needs of “mobile broadband” into the next decade. LTE (Long Term Evolution) is the project name of a new high performance air interface for cellular mobile communication systems. It is the latest step toward the 4th generation of radio technologies designed to cost effectively increase the capacity and speed of mobile telephone networks.  

Though LTE is marketed as 4G, it does not fully comply with the IMT Advanced 4G requirements. LTE is a set of enhancements to the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) which will be introduced in 3GPP Release 8, much of which will focus on adopting 4G mobile communications technology, including an all-IP flat networking architecture.  

The LTE specification provides downlink peak rates of at least 100 Mbps ( a headline figure of 326Mbps is quoted at 20MHz bandwidth), an uplink of at least 50 Mbps with RAN round-trip times of less than 10 ms. In addition it supports scalable carrier bandwidths, from 20 MHz down to 1.4 MHz and supports both frequency division duplexing (FDD) and time division duplexing (TDD). Part of the LTE standard is the System Architecture Evolution, a flat IP-based network architecture designed to replace the GPRS Core Network and ensure support for, and mobility between, some legacy or non-3GPP systems such as GPRS and WiMax respectively.  

For many manufacturers and operators it will be essential to gain early test, debug and validation of the new features of the specification. These include MIMO, HARQ, 64QAM in the radio network. There will also be significant differences between the new E-UTRAN and the existing UTRAN architecture as in E-UTRAN much of the radio resource management is devolved to the eNodeB (base station) which will now connect directly to the core network. LTE test equipment  rental provides a wide variety of solutions covering the air interface through to the core network to allow flexible measurement and tuning of solutions.   

Livingston work closely with a number of key test equipment manufacturers such as their partner; Agilent who is a member of 3GPP and an active contributor to the development of next-generation specifications, including both the Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) variants of LTE and the concurrent System Architecture Evolution (SAE) required to realize full performance potential. They create their product plans based on the knowledge and insight gained from this participation to ensure their suite of design and test solutions keep pace with evolving technology.  

Livingston provides a range of equipment that can help developers, installers and operators measure and therefore manage their network elements to achieve the required service and performance levels:  

  Livingston advantages of renting

 

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 Livingston provides a range of equipment that can help installers and operators measure and therefore manage their network elements to achieve the required service levels:

  • Rent as long as you need the equipment
  • Only quality brands
  • No hidden costs
  • If equipment goes faulty, replacements will be supplied within 24hrs
  • When you have finished with the equipment, give us a call and we will arrange collection

 

Livingston advantages of renting