First Common Milestone will be 3G W-CDMA Conformance Testing

Europe : CETECOM and TELEC have announced a strategic collaboration to provide the Japanese mobile communications industry with conformance testing resources on location for accessing global markets.

The first phase of this cooperation will make W-CDMA conformance testing including radio, protocol and RRM test cases available in Japan. For the moment, the GSM/GPRS conformance scope of dual mode devices will be tested in cooperation with other CETECOM testing laboratories outside Japan. Also, as part of this cooperation, CETECOM will implement testing services in Germany required for launching 3G devices on the Japanese market.

The global range of services will also include field trials, interoperability testing and Application Enabler (AE) testing, test scenarios for international roaming and the handling of international type approval processes as well as seminars on the latest technical developments in mobile communications.

Thanks to the worldwide networking of all CETECOM testing facilities with CETECOM’s proprietary internet-based testing and project management tool (TOM) and the handling of all projects with this tool, the customers can benefit from optimised test processes and thus from a reduced time to market.

"This partnership benefits Japanese, European, and American companies trying to sell their devices globally – a significant step forward towards global coverage," said Dr. Harald Ansorge, Managing Director of CETECOM GmbH. "CETECOM continues developing its strategy in Asia, now cooperating with TELEC for local 3G testing in Japan. We understood from the beginning that a strong Japanese partner would add greatly to our technical offer.

TELEC has well-known expertise and reputation in the Japanese industry and now, by teaming up with TELEC, CETECOM is ready to deliver its know-how and experience to Japanese customers through TELEC with a strong local presence. This type of scheme, based on local partnerships, has given us excellent results in other Asian countries. We are totally satisfied if our customers increase competitiveness in their respective markets.”

Mr. Ryoichi Miyauchi, Executive Managing Director of TELEC, explained: "By offering W-CDMA conformance testing in Japan, with the support of CETECOM, TELEC aims to satisfy the need of the Japanese industry and confirms TELEC’s strategy to continue among the most advanced testing organisations in the world. Our focus is to provide tools to Japanese companies to succeed globally.

CETECOM is the most reliable partner due to their worldwide capabilities, experience and reputation in the field of mobile communications. This is a very positive step forward for both companies, but the real winners are our customers who can now test in Japan their devices or prototypes for global market access.

TELEC and CETECOM will continue to work independently in other areas not covered by this agreement, but both companies have created a new basis for cooperation that will benefit the whole industry.”

To make this cooperation as fruitful as possible, test engineers and project managers from both companies will jointly conduct testing services at TELEC’s building in Tokyo. The start of the W-CDMA conformance testing services in Japan is scheduled for November 2005. These 3G testing services are already available within the CETECOM network, both for GCF and PTCRB certifications.