Europe : Rohde & Schwarz announced that its R&S CMU200 universal communications tester now supports CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Revision A, the latest enhancement to the CDMA2000 family of standards that are being deployed by wireless service providers throughout North America and the world. The new capabilities are provided as a firmware upgrade to the R&S CMU200 (free of charge for customers owning R&S CMU200s with CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev. 0 capability), and include the ability to perform testing in hybrid mode (voice and data together) using two synchronized R&S CMU200s.

DMA2000 1xEV-DO Revision A brings significant enhancements to the initial “1xEV-DO” standard (Revision 0), including an increase in maximum data rates from 2.4 Mb/s to 3.1 Mb/s in the forward link and from 153.6 kb/s to 1.8 Mb/s in the reverse link. In addition, Revision A introduces enhancements for latency-sensitive and/or delay-sensitive applications such as enhanced push-to-talk, multi-player gaming, laptop-based video conferencing, Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), and Instant Multimedia Messaging (IMM).

The new firmware for the R&S CMU200 allows manufacturers, service centers, and service providers to perform end-to-end testing of both RF and data parameters to ensure proper functioning of a product under the wide array of operational conditions it will experience. The measurements performed by the R&S CMU200 comply with the full range of minimum performance tests identified in the IS-866-A (Minimum Performance Specification) standard.

Additionally, the R&S CMU200 now supports hybrid mode operation, in which two or more CMU200s are used to emulate a network that provides both voice (CMDA2000 1xRTT) and data (CDMA2000 1xEV-DO) channels to the device under test. This further extends the R&S CMU200’s ability to evaluate the performance of today’s hybrid mobiles in a realistic environment.

The R&S CMU200 universal radio communication tester is a comprehensive instrument that performs a wide array of tests that let manufacturers evaluate their products’ performance in accordance with wireless standards. It also gives users the ability to make general-purpose measurements and create their own test routines. The R&S CMU200 is supported by a full complement of options that make it configurable to meet specific measurement needs. Typical applications include subsystem design, application development, production testing, quality inspection, and base station simulation.

Release of the new firmware continues the company’s commitment to providing the latest measurement tools to owners of its instruments with minimal additional investment. In this case, owners of the R&S CMU200 currently using the instrument to evaluate the performance of products designed to operate in CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev. 0 can now evaluate their latest “Rev. A-enabled” products with no additional expense for hardware or software.

The firmware (Version 4.30) is available now from Rohde & Schwarz.