Complexity is the New Normal

Both enterprise and service provider networks are increasingly heterogeneous and yet need to be calibrated to work with a wide spectrum of user devices

Test and Measurement (T&M) equipment is essential to successful deployment, rollout and expansion of all communication networks, whether enterprise or telecom. When operational, the networks cannot do without a robust T&M support, especially when it comes to meeting the various quality of service (QoS) requirements.

Major Players

T&M market in India is quite competitive due to the presence of a large number of players, which gives enterprises and service providers a number of options to choose from, depending on their requirements. Agilent Technologies, Anritsu, Viavi Solutions (earlier JDSU), Keysight Technologies, Rohde & Schwarz, Aimil, Aplab, Tektronix and National Instruments are among the key vendors active in the market.

One of Anritsu’s new T&M offerings is a remote spectrum analyzer. On deploying, the analyzer, as an individual device or as a network of devices mounted around a city at 2-3 mile intervals, can provide a cloud-based, comprehensive view of spectrum assets and interferers. The analyzer also has the potential implications for use in LTE-U, both in ability to provide a regional spectrum survey for baseline information prior to LTE-U being deployed, and being able to assess how LTE-U and Wi-Fi were competing for spectrum use.

Azimuth Systems, with offerings in wireless performance test solutions, has developed a virtual network en- vironment that can support up to 12 configurable interfering cells in a single box for HetNet testing in the lab. This will reduce costs significantly, by enabling more HetNet testing to be conducted in the lab versus in the field and forcing devices to deal with closed subscriber group small cells.

The electronic test and measurement equipment service provider Keysight, provides analysis option for wireless power transfer that addresses the growing trend of wireless charging for smart devices. With this software option, the ENA Series network analyzers are now able to effectively address the needs of emerging wireless power transfer (WPT) markets.

Keysight technologies also has launched a new low-frequency vector net-