Telecom Platform Deployment Featured Article

In order to receive NEBS compliance, it must begin in the initial design phase of a product. Product requirement documents are looked at to make sure the given product has been created to meet the pre-defined requirements, and that full test coverage is applied. Detailed design reviews including both the electrical and mechanical parts of each system element, take place early in the product program definition.

A whitepaper released by Emerson (News - Alert) entitled, “Successful Design and Test Methodology for NEBS- Creating Equipment that Meets Carrier Requirements using Open Standards,-” represents the fact that proven design guidelines and measured care are crucial in several areas including PCB layout, product enclosure shielding effectiveness, I/O filtering, surge suppression, bonding and grounding, thermal performance and mechanical structural integrity.

All of these factors combined- help to greatly increase passing test results during the NEBS pre-testing efforts, which are implemented to cut any product release delays, and the huge costs of having to re-design and re-test.

It is highly important that as soon as the first prototype hardware arrives, verification testing must begin as part of the overall product development validation phase.  A list of test requirements that most times can lead to issues and will require pre-testing include but are not limited to: radiated emissions, conducted emissions, ESD, lightning, power transients, operational temperature and humidity, acoustic noise, office vibrations, and fire spread.

Many telecom equipment manufacturers (TEMs) decide at times to plan and execute their own NEBS testing. This can work out great if a supplier’s product or platform contributions are an element of the overall customer solution. In a case like this, the TEM must ensure that the specified products have been created to pass NEBS testing.

A supplier must be able to give direct support to TEM engineering teams to make sure that all of the documentation is available to make the NEBS qualification process official, which includes support if issues are discovered during test.

In order for the equipment to be ready to go through a NEBS qualification program, it must be stable and run error free for several hours, which typically can range up to two weeks. Once this milestone is reached, the product or platform equipment is ready to begin the rigorous NEBS qualification testing.