Mobile Carriers Developing Next-Gen Networks With LTE

By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Mobile carriers are currently developing next generation of networks to handle the huge increase in mobile traffic. Long Term Evolution, which you might have heard referred to as 4G, will most likely be the next-generation technology for both voice and data wireless transmission.

With the exception of the air interface, LTE (News - Alert) is an all-IP network – taking advantage of and converging with IP network technology. The reason for the optimism is that LTE has some impressive capabilities:

It has support for multiple-input, multiple-output antenna technology, including 2x2 and 4x4 configurations. It also features 300 Mbps downlink and 150 Mbps uplink bandwidth when using 4x4 MIMO, with latencies of less than 5 ms. It also can handle hundreds of users per cell.

Most major telecom equipment manufacturers and carriers are getting cracking on developing and providing LTE products and services. But in order for enterprises and carriers to be fully ready for the 4G transition, they must fully test their devices and networks. This means from end-to-end, from the radio tower through the IP core and at scale, using well-modeled scenarios based on actual subscriber usage patterns.

It also means testing at load, especially over the mobile backhaul network as it necessarily moves from TDM- to Ethernet-based infrastructure.

Good companies do well in this space. Ixia (News - Alert), a provider of technology for testing wireless networks, reported its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2010, racking up record revenue and slashing the net loss from $2.7 million to $361,000.

Revenue for the 2010 second quarter includes approximately $15.3 million attributable to sales of the IxN2X and IxCatapult products following the acquisition of Agilent (News - Alert) Technologies' N2X Data Network Testing Product Line in October 2009 and the acquisition of Catapult Communications in June 2009.

TMC's CEO Rich Tehrani had a chance to interview Atul Bhatnagar (News - Alert), Ixia's president and chief executive officer, at Interop 2010 in Las Vegas. Bhatnagar told him the best time to change is when business is slow, as you can do things you cannot when the business is running at a faster clip.

"In the company's business planning they realized convergence is the driver," Tehrani noted, adding that "this convergence applies to wireless and wired. And this convergence has the effect of causing the testing tools to converge as well."

(source: http://testing-wireless-networks.tmcnet.com/topics/testing-wireless-networks/articles/108103-mobile-carriers-developing-next-gen-networks-with-lte.htm)