PCTEST Lab Selects Spirent Communications For Over-The-Air A-GPS Testing

Sunnyvale, CA - Spirent Communications plc, a global provider of performance analysis solutions and service management solutions, recently announced that PCTEST Engineering Laboratory has added Over-the-Air (OTA) testing to its existing automated Spirent Position Location Test System (PLTS). With this upgrade to its portfolio of wireless mobile device testing services, PCTEST lab can run accurate, consistent test cases that emulate cellular networks, RF radio conditions and GPS satellites to fully test the Assisted GPS (A-GPS) performance of cellular devices.

Poor GPS antenna performance leads to a disappointing user experience that negatively impacts operators' Location Based Services (LBS) revenues. Adding a GPS antenna to a densely-packed mobile device can be a major challenge. The industry's existing A-GPS certification standards do not include OTA testing, which means that GPS antenna performance issues are not always caught prior to commercial deployment. This has led the industry to broaden the scope of its existing OTA Test Plan for mobile devices to include A-GPS.

"The addition of Spirent's A-GPS OTA test platform is consistent with our commitment to leadership in wireless testing and certification of mobile devices," said PCTEST president Randy Ortanez. "Spirent's A-GPS test equipment complements PCTEST Lab's comprehensive array of testing services supporting the wireless industry's requirements. We believe this continued improvement further reinforces our leadership position in handset testing services in North America."

Spirent PLTS (http://www.spirent.com/go/plts) is a fully integrated, automated test solution for all CDMA mobile devices that use Assisted GPS (A-GPS), Advanced Forward Link Trilateration (AFLT), Hybrid (AFLT and A-GPS) or GPS-only technologies. In addition to conformance/certification testing to industry standards, the Spirent PLTS allows performance evaluation well beyond these baseline test scenarios to identify performance breakpoints under real-world conditions.

"As the leader in A-GPS testing, Spirent has been making significant contributions to the industry's new OTA Test Plan for A-GPS. We are delighted to see a leading test lab like PCTEST offering this important new capability to its customers," said Hesham ElHamahmy, senior director, Business Development at Spirent Communications. "We believe this test methodology will significantly increase user satisfaction with new LBS that are enabled by A-GPS."

SOURCE: Spirent Communications plc