The World Certification Discussion board is including machine certification for mobile Non-Terrestrial Networks to its applications, responding to rising curiosity throughout the {industry} in ensuring that IoT units and cell phones efficiently interoperate with rising satellite-based connectivity choices.
NTN certification can be activated with the subsequent launch of GCF certification standards subsequent month, in response to the group. GCF plans to activate a narrowband IoT certification testing for NTN first, to be adopted by NTN certification for 5G New Radio units.
“By facilitating certification for numerous machine producers and fashions, GCF is main the best way—serving to satellite tv for pc operators set the stage for putting NTN-capable units available on the market,” stated Isabelle Mauro, director common on the World Satellite tv for pc Operators Affiliation (GSOA). “Activation of an industry-wide certification program is a superb achievement in the direction of this aim.”
In a weblog publish printed this week, GCF’s Head of Enterprise Improvement Carlos Pedraz wrote that GCF stated that it has been actively working because the starting of 2023 to introduce NTN requirements into its certification program, beginning with preliminary frequency bands n255 (L-band) and n256 (S-band). The 3GPP Rel-17 NTN certification for NB-IoT will cowl each LEO and GEO constellations, he famous.
“With subject trials for NTN nonetheless being analysed and developed, the preliminary focus is about on conformance testing,” Pedraz wrote. “Topic to GCF members approval, certification of NTN NB-IoT units may begin with conformance take a look at circumstances solely, till NTN industrial networks can be found and take a look at specs for subject trials are made out there.”
He stated that the GSMA Terminal Steering Group offers the take a look at specification (for subject trials in terrestrial networks being utilized in GCF certification. That spec is “continually evolving” and already on model 43, Pedraz famous, however it doesn’t but assist subject trials for NTN connectivity, that are being developed. “The main focus is about on the definition of NTN-IoT take a look at circumstances (for each GEO and LEO), and subject trials are a key space,” Pedraz wrote.
“Whereas a approach ahead to check actual implementations is fascinating, there are a variety of challenges to beat,” he continued. “This contains technical points as a result of motion of satellites and the nice distance from units below take a look at, equivalent to Doppler shift, Faraday rotation, and excessive attenuation. However as well as, there are additionally seemingly points as a result of low availability of satellite tv for pc networks and the density of satellites, in addition to restricted entry to GCF RTOs (Recognised Check Organisations) to subscriptions, take a look at spots, and details about constellations.”
In different take a look at information:
–Anritsu is getting in on NTN testing for Skylo‘s community, saying this week that it’s collaborating with Skylo on take a look at assist for machine, module and chipset makers to have the ability to assess product compatibility with and efficiency on Skylo’s community. Anritsu stated that it will likely be supporting quite a few take a look at areas, together with machine RF parametrics, Over-The-Air (OTA), Efficiency, Protocol Conformance, and RF Conformance assessments.
Certification testing for Skylo’s NTN community has beforehand been introduced by Keysight Applied sciences and Rohde & Schwarz.
-The Digital Communications Workplace of Iceland (ECOI) tapped Rohde & Schwarz to check the efficiency, protection and capability of the nation’s three cellular community operators, primarily based on the Community Efficiency Rating (NPS) 2.0 customary from the European Telecommunications Requirements Institute (ETSI).
“ECOI is among the first regulatory authorities in Europe to depend on the NPS for such a large-scale community benchmarking marketing campaign,” R&S famous, occurring to say, “NPS model 2.0 applies more difficult thresholds and complicated weighting, particularly for developed networks dominated by 5G know-how, as is the case in Iceland.”
The five-week benchmarking marketing campaign occurred in September and October of 2023, and Rohde stated that it concerned round 9,000 kilometers of drive-testing in Iceland’s massive cities, small cities and rural roads, in areas masking roughly 90% of the nation’s inhabitants. Protection and community high quality inside procuring malls have been additionally examined.
The take a look at marketing campaign encompassed greater than 17,000 calls and greater than 160,000 information assessments, together with application-level assessments for 90-second voice calls, eGaming purposes, on-line conferences and video chats, in response to Rohde & Schwarz.
“The benchmark measurements confirmed that each one three cellular networks in Iceland; Síminn, Nova and Vodafone scored over 700 factors (out of 1000), making them on par with different cellular networks in Europe,” the take a look at firm stated. “All three networks have excellent 5G protection in cities and cities and glorious 4G protection nationwide. Each voice and information providers are dependable, however there may be nonetheless room for enchancment.”
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