[May 10, 2012]

Ascom Network Testing Releases Next-Generation Mobile Network Testing Platform

Ascom Network Testing - the world leader in mobile network testing solutions - today unveiled its next-generation mobile network testing platform with the releases of TEMS™ Investigation 14.0, its flagship network troubleshooting, verification, optimization and maintenance tool; and TEMS™ Pocket 12.0, its handheld measurement and event data collection tool. Together with its recently announced TEMS™ Discovery Enterprise client-server post-processing solution, the platform's new capabilities enable operators and service providers to truly assess and troubleshoot network quality of service as experienced with the latest smartphones and 4G LTE (News - Alert) networks on an automated, scalable and highly distributed scale.

Highlights of the new platform include:

• TEMS Investigation 14.0, which enables wireless network testing from a smartphone perspective using the Sony Ericsson (News - Alert) Xperia arc S and Samsung Infuse 4G with advanced control functionality. A new, common TEMS logfile format - .trp - enables enhanced recording capabilities and efficient management and analysis of logfiles. The new format enables multiple logfiles to be recorded in parallel, so that the activities of one device can be recorded in any number of logfiles simultaneously.
  
  TEMS Investigation 14.0 also includes a speech quality algorithm for VoIP based on POLQA, the standard being developed for HD voice, 3G and 4G/LTE and VoIP that considers distortions arising from the convergence of voice, data and multimedia application services, performance for wideband/high bandwidth audio signals, and CDMA networks.

• TEMS Pocket 12.0, which enables technicians to discretely collect measurements by using commercial mobile smartphones that can easily be brought indoors.
  
  TEMS Pocket 12.0 introduces the ability to lock on to multiple cells at once, eliminating the number o test walks required to get an accurate reading within a facility. As an example, the feature enables technicians to lock on to indoor cell sites while filtering out outdoor macro sites to validate indoor vs. outdoor coverage. The alternative to these non-intrusive control functions is to physically shut down cell sites or otherwise change RAN configurations, procedures which inevitably impinge on network operation and affect subscribers. Multi-cell lock-on also allows testing with greater accuracy and reliability, since each locking procedure can be configured in advance and readily shared among engineers. The ability to lock on to multiple cells/technologies at the same time is unique to TEMS and is currently not available in other network testing solutions.
  
  
  TEMS Pocket currently supports the most widely used LTE handsets in the U.S. including the HTC ThunderBolt CDMA/LTE and HTC Vivid WCDMA/LTE. Additionally, the TEMS-unique control capabilities are supported by Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S (LT18a, LT18i) and also on the Samsung Galaxy S 4G SGH-T959V, making Ascom Network Testing the only provider of Android (News - Alert) smartphones with control capabilities.

• TEMS Discovery, which provides a single, uniform post-processing platform for RF data sources, delivering a highly scalable solution that provides multifaceted performance information throughout the network lifecycle: from rollout, to optimization, benchmarking, in-building testing and subscriber quality of experience (QOE). TEMS Discovery supports a wide range of data sources (drive test, IP trace, call trace and network cell configuration); network technologies (LTE/TD-LTE, WCDMA, HSPA/HSPA+, GSM, CDMA, EV-DO, WiMAX (News - Alert)), from TEMS as well as third-party vendor probes (TEMS Investigation, TEMS Pocket, TEMS™ Automatic, TEMS™ Symphony, TEMS™ Monitor Master, JDSU, Nemo, Qualcomm QXDM, ZK Celltest (News - Alert), LLDM and PCTEL scanners).
  
  TEMS Discovery Enterprise is a centralized, automated highly scalable solution for enterprise-grade post processing and analysis of huge volumes of drive-, in-building-, nomadic- and autonomous-test data - including TEMS Investigation and TEMS Pocket, as well as TEMS Automatic - the company's autonomous network testing system that delivers end-to-end QoS information using unattended test probes - and TEMS Symphony, a unified benchmarking platform for drive testing, indoor testing, and nomadic testing.

"These new releases bring the TEMS portfolio to the next level by showcasing Ascom Network Testing's continued dedication to innovation and the impact of our longstanding investment in research and development," said Rikard Lundqvist, General Manager, Ascom Network Testing.

"As the leading technology chosen to test and validate more than 60% of all LTE network deployments worldwide, our collective experience enables our customers to achieve optimal economy, efficiency and customer satisfaction for their major LTE network expansions," Lundqvist said.

ABOUT ASCOM NETWORK TESTING

Ascom Network Testing offers the TEMS Portfolio, the world's most widely used network testing, monitoring and optimization platform. Ascom Network Testing is a division of Ascom, an international solution provider with comprehensive technological know-how in Mission-Critical Communication. The company focuses on the areas of Wireless Solutions (high-value, customer-specific on-site communications solutions) and Network Testing (a global market leader in optimization solutions for mobile networks). The company is headquartered in Switzerland, has subsidiaries in 17 countries and a workforce of some 1,900 employees worldwide. Ascom registered shares (symbol ASCN) are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange in Zurich (Switzerland).

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]