Testing Wireless Networks Featured Article

As a supplier of test, monitoring and analysis equipment for TDM, wireless, IP and VoIP networks, GL Communications unveiled its ATM BERT Software that leverages GL’s T1 E1 platforms to perform BER testing over ATM switching and transmission systems.

According to Jagdish Vadalia, senior manager at GL, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a common form of transmission and switching technology used on DSL, fiber optics, and 3G mobile infrastructures.

In a release, Jagdish said, “Transmission systems could be any digital facility including: T1, E1, DSL, T3, E3, OC3, STM1, OC12, STM4, and other higher rates. ATM is based on segmenting all information regardless of type (voice, data, picture, or video) into ‘cells,’ of length 48 bytes plus 5 overhead bytes (53 total). At the receiving end the reassembly of these cells puts the information back to its original state.

“To handle all information types many higher layer protocols have been developed called ATM Adaptation Layers or AALs.” Mr. Vadalia further added that GL develops all the tools required for the analysis and testing of ATM such as ATM Analyzer, Inverse Multiplexing over ATM (IMA) Analyzer, T3 E3 ATM Analyzer, OC3 STM1 OC12 STM4 ATM Analyzer and others.

In an ATM virtual connection, the ATM BERT application can be used to verify end-to-end integrity with any of GL’s T1 E1 platforms. According to Jagdish, ATM BERT application takes advantage of ATM adaption layer to insert BERT pattern into the 48 byte cell payload. By sourcing test traffic, the ATM virtual circuit can be tested by verifying at the receive end. The application includes other testing features such as Bit Error Insertion, Looping back incoming traffic (using T1 E1 Loopback), and configuring ATM headers for UNI & NNI interfaces. Various Pseudo Random Bit Sequence patterns can also be generated by the application such as all ones or zeroes as well as user-defined bit patterns.

Some of the other important features of the application include support for user-defined header configuration; user-defined traffic rate; inverting payload and scrambling support; statistic generation for Rx/Tx cell count, rejected cell count, pass cell count, idle cell count, cell rate, and HEC error count; Tx and Rx settings for multiple ports and saving and loading of configuration settings. With convenient features like portability, remotability, and scripting, GL's test platforms provide unmatched visualization, capture, storage compared to conventional test platforms.

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