MWC 2019 | Tier-One U.S. Mobile Operator Taps Spirent for Nationwide 5G Assurance

Spirent Communications plc, the provider of test, measurement, assurance and analytics solutions for next-generation devices and networks, today announced that it has been selected by a tier-one U.S. mobile operator to support nationwide 5G assurance efforts.

The operator will deploy Spirent VisionWorks for active assurance, initially testing end-to-end performance across its Non-standalone (NSA) 5G network. The deployment is underway in more than two dozen 5G markets, with plans to expand to hundreds more over time and to support the roll out of Standalone 5G beginning next year.

“With 5G, the stakes are higher than ever for operators to deliver differentiated experiences and guaranteed quality for a range of customers and applications, from connected vehicles to IoT sensors and beyond,” said Doug Roberts, General Manager of Lifecycle Service Assurance at Spirent. “For the first time, we’re seeing operators deploy service assurance alongside the earliest stages of their next-gen network rollouts. Our customers have recognized that delivering on early performance expectations is absolutely paramount to the development of sustainable 5G revenue streams.”

Initial 5G deployment strategies see operators layering 5G NSA on top of expansive 4G networks before moving to Standalone 5G networks. As operators evolve from 4G to NSA 5G and eventually Standalone 5G, they acquire expansive new network slicing capabilities, which create new challenges for how quality is assured.

Operators are also challenged with 5G’s comparatively compressed rollout timelines and the unending waterfall of new technologies and standards to track and implement. With heightened focus on performance and extreme complexity, a solution that can rapidly identify and resolve trouble issues is imperative.

In early 5G deployments, VisionWorks has been proven to assure performance and quickly resolve complex end-to-end issues. It performs active testing from outside the network and inside the network all the way to the core, while monitoring end-to-end services. In the deployment announced today, VisionWorks will initially be used to isolate the root causes of performance issues such as low data throughput and high latency, paving the way for new high-performance services via network slicing.

Spirent deployments of active assurance solutions have demonstrated seven to ten times faster turn-up of new network functions, saving millions of dollars per year by reducing the costs of manual testing and troubleshooting, and by avoiding service level agreement (SLA) penalties. In its latest deployment, Spirent’s VisionWorks active assurance platform includes:

· VisionWorks Analytics to create KPIs from active test agents, aggregate and analyze data for end-to-end visibility of performance, and intelligently isolate issues

· VisionWorks Active Test Agents that cover the end-to-end 5G service path, from device to core network, including 24/7 over-the-air (OTA) testing in fixed locations, and 4G and 5G NSA core network testing