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3rd September 2003

US : Spirent Communications announced a significant new release of functionality for its AirAccess WCDMA Network Emulator. The AirAccess WCDMA system allows network operators and mobile device manufacturers to verify the performance and interoperability of WCDMA User Equipment (UE) and services using a unique “network in a box” solution. The enhanced emulation is another demonstration of Spirent’s commitment to delivering innovative wireless test solutions that help accelerate the profitable deployment of WCDMA technologies.

“Spirent is dedicated to helping ensure the successful rollout of WCDMA” states Richard Catmur, wireless business development director for Spirent Communications’ Wireless group. “We are constantly evolving our products to reflect dynamic test specifications and customer requirements. These AirAccess WCDMA enhancements ensure that our customers will get the most thorough evaluation possible of their new products and services.”

With its powerful feature set and active protocol stack, the AirAccess WCDMA resembles a real network much more closely than do script-driven protocol testers or manufacturing-oriented base station emulators. Unlike some competitive products, AirAccess WCDMA helps characterise WCDMA UE performance during all stages of development and deployment. AirAccess WCDMA is a development of the CS100 platform, acquired by Spirent from UbiNetics in September of 2002.

AirAccess WCDMA is driven by a powerful, easy-to-use GUI which gives complete real-time control over network configuration and parameters. This helps to anticipate and resolve potential interoperability issues faster and with greater accuracy than ever before. New functionalities within the AirAccess WCDMA platform include:
• Support of up to six cells, enabling more thorough testing of UEs in a live WCDMA network environment on a tabletop. The behaviour of each cell is individually configurable, allowing thorough verification of UE cell selection and re-selection performance, in addition to call processing in a multi-cell environment; and
• Addition of protocol emulation required to execute 3GPP TS 34.121 Chapter 8 Radio Resource Management (RRM) conformance tests. AirAccess WCDMA integrates with Spirent’s UMTS Automatic Test System (U-ATS) to provide the most complete coverage of the RRM (Chapter 8) tests currently available.

Spirent Communications’ wireless test solutions aid in all phases of mobile device development and deployment for the world's leading chipset, mobile and infrastructure manufacturers and mobile network operators. Spirent’s extensive CDMA experience has led to it being considered by the industry the "one-stop-shop" for CDMA handset performance and certification testing. Among its accomplishments, Spirent has introduced the first and only integrated solution available to test location-capable CDMA phones, a critical element of assisting manufacturers in meeting the U.S. FCC E911 requirements. Spirent has now leveraged its success in mobile performance and certification testing to bring comprehensive performance analysis to the WCDMA market.