Anritsu LTE-Advanced RF Conformance Test System Earns Industry's First Cat-M1 Test GCF Certification

Anritsu ME7873LA World Leader with More Than 70 GCF-certified Test Cases for Frequency Bands in Japan, North America, and Europe

Anritsu Company announces that its LTE-Advanced RF Conformance Test System ME7873LA has earned the first GCF certification for the LTE Category M1 (Cat M1) RF Conformance Test, as part of IoT communications technology. With the GCF certification achievement at the recent CAG#50 meeting in London, the ME7873LA has approval for more than 70 test cases across seven bands, including frequency bands in Japan, North America, and Europe. Anritsu has the highest number of validated tests, as well as the largest number of band combinations supported for Cat M1, positioning Anritsu as the world leader in GCF-validated test cases.

Leading domestic and international carriers are planning to introduce Cat-M1 and Narrow Band-IoT (NB-IoT) technologies this year. They will be integrated into mobile networks to support the approaching explosive growth of the “IoT Society.” Both technologies are based on the LTE standards in 3GPP Release 13 regulating the IoT Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) network technology supporting communications at low power over wide coverage areas.

Deployment of Cat-M1 is already underway by a major North American mobile operator. Further introductions in Japan, Europe and expansion in North America are expected throughout 2017. NB-IoT is planned for upcoming services centered on China and South Korea. For the future, these IoT communications technologies are expected to see active adoption in various fields, including smart meters, home-security systems, lighting, freight tracking, vending machines, and healthcare appliances.

Anritsu also expects the ME7873LA to earn GCF/PTCRB certification for NB-IoT alongside Cat-M1. The company is continuing to focus efforts on developing conformance test systems to assist further development and deployment of IoT technologies.

The ME7873LA is a test platform for verifying compliance of LTE/LTE-Advanced mobile-terminal RF TRx characteristics and performance with 3GPP standards. It is used by mobile operators worldwide, especially in North America and Asia, as an acceptance inspection test system.