Outline of GCF Certification Process

Click on Image to enlarge

From a presentation by Colin Hamling, Vice Chair, GCF Steering Group in LTE World Summit, Amsterdam, 18 May 2011

Conformance, Interoperability and Field testing via GCF

Delivering a “Test Once, Use Anywhere” Certification Scheme for LTE Devices

View more presentations from Zahid Ghadialy.

Anritsu Demo at the LTE World Summit 2010

I have blogged about the Anritsu MD8430A here and about their RTD product here. Recently they have become first test equipment vendor in the world to achieve GCF-approved test case validations for both LTE (Long Term Evolution) RF and protocol conformance testing.

Here is their Demo from LTE World Summit 2010.

LTE, Conformance Testing and GCF

According to Light Reading article, LSTI results indicate that most mobile operators are still in the very early stages of testing next-gen mobile broadband Long Term Evolution (LTE) and Evolved Packet Core (EPC) technology.

Meanwhile, the System Simulator manufacturers are going strong in their LTE Conformance testing.

Anritsu Corporation announced recently that it is the first test equipment vendor in the world to achieve GCF-approved test case validations for both LTE (Long Term Evolution) RF and protocol conformance testing.

Mobile terminal manufacturers must gain GCF approval to prove that their LTE terminals satisfy the 3GPP standards, meaning that there is increasing demand for an approved conformance test environment.

At the GCF CAG#22 meeting earlier last month, Anritsu successfully gained GCF approval for an industry-leading 12 RF test cases for its ME7873L RF Conformance Test System together with additional test cases for its ME7832L Protocol Conformance Test System.

Anite and Huawei demonstrated the first TD-LTE UE protocol conformance test cases. Anite and Huawei are working together to accelerate the process of TD-LTE technology for China Mobile’s World Expo.

The new TD-LTE tests build out Anite’s comprehensive portfolio for all leading 3GPP protocol technologies, from GSM through EDGE and WCDMA to the latest HSPA+ and LTE futures. Anite blends software-only host and target test solutions for 2G, 3G and LTE technologies that allow developers to adopt a total end-to-end solution for all wireless testing needs.

Starting next month, 7 layers will offer LTE testing services in three areas: regulatory compliance, certification, and operator-specific test cases.

Aeroflex Test Solutions and 7 layers have signed an agreement to provide LTE (Long Term Evolution) testing services in support of the commercialization of LTE mobile phone networks in Japan. Aeroflex will install its 7100 LTE Digital Radio Test Set in 7 layersA' laboratory in Yokohama, Japan, greatly expanding 7 layersA' LTE regulatory compliance testing services.

With advanced LTE test equipment and services conveniently located, Japanese UE (user equipment) manufacturers and network operators can speed up testing in advance of LTE rollout.

Some tests and logs from the UE Conformance Testing of Protocols are available on the 3G4G website here.

Testing UMTS protocols

Testing UMTS by Dan Fox, Anritsu

Its nearly three years since I wrote an FAQ on UMTS Testing. So when I got my hands on this book the other day, I so wanted to read it. It would be a while before I manage to go through the book in detail but my initial impression is that this book looks quite good.

Since the book deals with Protocol Testing, the testing has been grouped into three categories:

1. Integration Testing
2. Conformance Testing
3. Interoperability Testing

There is a chapter explaining each of these. The Conformance testing is of interest to me as I have been involved directly and indirectly with this for quite some years now. The book explains the process, standards required and submission of tests to GCF/PTCRB.

For those whom testing does not hold much charm, they can gain greater understanding of the concepts by reading Part II of the book. One thing I really liked in this book is that the diagrams explain the concepts very well. Rather than copying them straight from the 3GPP specifications, they have been improved and re-done by the author. Basic things like 'Dynamic TFCI selection' and 'Layer 2 transport channel processing flow for the 12.2 kbps RMC' are explained clearly using the diagrams.

There is just the right amount of detail in the chapters for Physical Layer, Layer 2 (MAC, RLC, PDCP) and Layer 3 (RRC, NAS). Further chapters show message flow sequence charts explaining things like 'setting up of speech call' and 'location updating procedure'. I have some basic sequence diagrams for message flow in the Tutorial section but the ones in the book are comparatively more detailed.

The book mainly covers UMTS, with an introduction to HSPA. It would be worthwhile to have the next edition covering LTE in detail. The main reason being that there are lots of changes in the case of LTE. The Air Interface has changed, the channels are different. The NAS messages and entities are different. UMTS (and HSPA) use TTCN-2 for testing but LTE uses TTCN-3. UMTS does not use MIMO (MIMO available for HSPA from Release 7 onwards) but LTE would generally always use MIMO.

Overall, this seems to be a useful book and I am looking forward to reading it in detail.