HSPA testing in the spotlight at 3GSM

Rohde and Schwarz will present a comprehensive product portfolio featuring solutions for high speed packet access at the 3GSM World Congress.

Growing volumes of data, increasing transmission speed and unlimited possibilities are the characteristics of mobile communications in the new millennium.

With 1.5 billion subscribers, GSM has long since conquered the world, and UMTS is spreading fast - mainly due to high speed downlink/uplink packet access (HSDPA/HSUPA) as an attractive enhancement.

Manufacturers need reliable and future-oriented T and M solutions in order to provide user equipment that satisfies ever increasing requirements.

Rohde and Schwarz will present a comprehensive product portfolio featuring solutions for high speed packet access (HSPA) at the 3GSM World Congress.

Rohde and Schwarz has been offering a complete selection of products for HSDPA test and measurement since the beginning of 2005.

At the 3GSM World Congress 2006, the company will present HSUPA solutions for the first time.

Layer 1 test software for the tried-and-tested R and S CRTU-W and R and S CRTU-M platforms now also simulates the layer 1 behaviour of an HSUPA basestation.

It can generate complex HSUPA downlink signals at layer 1 and test their reception and processing in the layer 1 UE implementation under test.

For the R and S FSQ, FSP and FSU signal and spectrum analysers, Rohde and Schwarz has added HSUPA to the R and S FS-K72/-K73/-K74 application firmware packages.

Besides HSDPA functionality, comprehensive functions for transmitter measurements on HSUPA basestations and modules are now also available.

For the vector signal generators of the R and S SMx family, the R and S SMx K45 software option will provide a HSUPA update, enabling the R and S SMU200A, SMATE200A and SMJ100A to generate HSUPA signals for measurements on basestations.

To ensure smooth rollout of HSDPA over the course of 2006, reliable T and M solutions for user equipment and networks are called for.

The R and S CMU300 checks HSDPA settings at node Bs (UMTS basestations) and performs measurements on the physical HSDPA channels.

The new R and S CMU-K72 HSDPA monitoring option allows users to measure aspects such as data throughput.

The measurements serve as a basis for analysing and optimising algorithms for resource assignment, enabling network operators to tailor the quality of new services and the necessary network capacity to customer requirements by changing important HSDPA parameters.

Equipped with R and S Romes software, coverage measurement systems from Rohde and Schwarz provide valuable support in setting up HSDPA networks and optimising radio networks.

The measurements provide information about the actual HSDPA configuration, the availability and parameterisation of HSDPA services at different locations within the network, the signalling and the datarates reached at different levels.

R and S Romes software also features an automatic neighbourhood and handover analyser, allowing network operators to check handovers within a 3G network and between 2G and 3G networks online during the measurement.

The analyser automatically compares the measurement results from a UMTS PN scanner, a GSM network scanner and a test mobile phone with the GSM BTS list and the UMTS node B list.

A special algorithm tests the system to determine if potential interference is present or adjacent cells are missing, thereby making further analysis superfluous.

The R and S CMU200 mobile radio tester from Rohde and Schwarz also follows the trend toward higher datarates.

The instrument already generates and decodes HSDPA signals up to 10Mbit/s in nonsignalling mode.

The company has now added a signalling mode to the instrument's HSDPA functionality, enabling it to set up an HSDPA connection to user equipment of classes up to 3.6Mbit/s.

Datarates up to 10Mbit/s in the signalling mode and end-to-end data test applications are currently being developed.

The R and S CMU200 features flexibility in setting all essential parameters in nonsignalling as well as signalling mode.

In addition, it covers all RF measurements of the five main groups: power, modulation, spectrum, code domain power and receiver sensitivity.

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