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Aeroflex plans products to support 3G LTE testing

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Feb 13, 2007

Aeroflex has outlined its initial strategy for the development of test products to support the new 3G Long-Term Evolution (3G LTE) standard.

Aeroflex has outlined its initial strategy for the development of test products to support the new 3G Long-Term Evolution (3G LTE) standard.

3GLTE is 3GPP's vision for ensuring 3G remains the dominant global cellular technology throughout the next decade.

"It is generally accepted that, beyond the increasing deployment of important technology enhancements such as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), both on the uplink and the downlink, significant further 3G evolution is required if it is to continue to dominate the global cellular market", says Phil Windred of Aeroflex Test Solutions, Wireless Division.

"3G will need to compete head-on with DSL in order to win the fixed/mobile substitution battle as well as compete with rapidly developing alternative technologies such as WiMAX for broadband wireless access and DVB-H for broadcast".

The progress of the standardisation work for 3G LTE is based on a set of high-level requirements, the principal aim of which is to further improve service provisioning and coverage but at a reduced cost per bit compared to 3G for both operators and users.

The deployment of 3G LTE will bring with it significant testing challenges.

In order to obtain the performance advantage for higher data-rate mobile applications, the 3G LTE specification will be based on a switch from W-CDMA to OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) modulation technology.

This represents a significant change at the very lowest level of the radio communications and achieving synchronisation will be a major challenge.

Aeroflex is designing a pair of test products, the Aeroflex TM500 LTE and Aeroflex 6401 LTE, which will support the physical layer testing of networks and mobile devices respectively.