In this Issue:
TESTING APPLICATIONS
High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) Testing
IuCS Core Testing Update
WHAT’S NEW….
m500 Mesh Outperforms Traditional Test Platforms
Chameleon® Protocol Analyzer on DCT2000®
What’s New in DCT2000
What’s New in MGTS®
TECHNICAL TIPS
Catapult News is issued periodically by Catapult Communications. Covering a variety of test
topics, we hope that you find this e-newsletter to be informative and helpful.
High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) Testing
Testing systems are being put to the test as most mobile operators plan to deploy High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA)
in 2006. 3GPP defined these new UMTS packet air interfaces as a response to the
increase in high bandwidth user applications, such as multimedia messaging services or emails with large attachments.
Some of the benefits of HSUPA are higher throughput rates with a maximum of 5.76 Mbps, reduction in packet delay and overall efficiencies. Together HSDPA and HSUPA are becoming key contributors to UMTS market growth by providing broadband capabilities
to the wireless subscriber.
Catapult has implemented HSUPA on DCT2000 Rel. 10.2 as defined by 3GPP UMTS standards. It is an element of a larger Iub test application used to load test the RNC by simulating multiple Node Bs and UEs.
For more information on HSUPA implementation on DCT2000 please contact your local Catapult representative.
IuCS Core Testing
Catapult continues to enhance your IuCS test tools with new capabilities to complement previous releases. Key components of our current functionality include:
- PESQ for voice quality testing introduces the ability to inject a WAV file in the sending end and retrieve the processed WAV file on the receiving end. The PESQ algorithm analyzes the level of distortion and provides feedback.
- Traffic Generator is used to verify the IuCS interface by simulating one or more RNCs, a large number of UEs, or the PSTN. Traffic Generator enables the transmission of real voice samples.
- Transcoder Free Operation (TrFO) provides MGTS users the ability to support AMR codec rate control and spontaneous rate changes during a call. All AMR and AMR2 codec rates, including silence, are supported.
- Soft Handover. Three handover scenarios are supported for both signaling and user plane:
° 2G to 2G
° 2G to 3G
° 3G to 3G
Catapult m500 Mesh Outperforms Traditional Test Platforms
The Catapult m500 test platform delivers unprecedented load test performance. The
m500 is designed around an industry standard mesh backplane that offers more speed, scalability and flexibility than traditional bus architecture test platforms. The mesh architecture of the m500 platform allows the physical test interface to be driven by one or many mesh computing unit cards to meet the demanding test needs of today's high speed networks.
The Catapult DCT2000 and MGTS products are available on the m500 platform to test
next generation wireless, converged wireline and traditional SS7 networks. Multiple users
can simultaneously run multiple applications (UMTS, GPRS, VoIP, SS7) with a wide range
of network physical interfaces being supported including:
- Gigabit Ethernet
- STM-1c/OC-3c
- Structured STM-1
- J1/E1/T1
- Ethernet
Please contact your Catapult sales representative for details on a migration strategy.
Chameleon Protocol Analyzer On DCT2000
The DCT2000 test system has been enhanced to support the Chameleon protocol
analyzer software. UMTS test engineers can avoid buying expensive adjunct protocol analysis tools. Effective with Release 11.2 this June, fully functioning R99 Chameleon software will be delivered at no additional cost to licensees of the DCT2000 Iu or IuB protocols.
The Chameleon protocol analyzer runs on DCT2000 p-series hardware platform providing
a rich set of monitoring and analysis functions, including automatic configuration, to quickly understand and resolve network protocol issues.
The Java Web Start GUI application will be released shortly after Release 11.2 as open source code under public license. Releasing the Chameleon GUI source code allows sophisticated power users to customize their protocol analysis environments to better
suit their testing needs.
What's New on DCT2000 Release 10.6
New protocols:
- MM3/MM4 based on 3GPP TS23.140 V6.10.0 June 2005
- Short Message Peer to Peer (SMPP) Protocol Specification Version 5.0,
February 2003
Protocol updates:
- NBAP R6 protocol V3 has been upgraded to support 3GPP TS25.433.V6.8.0 December 2005
- RNSAP R6 protocol V2 has been upgraded to support 3GPP TS 25.423 V6.8.0 December 2005
- RRC R6 protocol V3 has been upgraded to support 3GPP TS 25.331 V6.8.0
December 2005
Other updates:
- J1/E1/T1 PPCI concurrent interface operation
- IuB-PS and IuB-CS QuickStart for the OC3 physical interface
- Iu-PS QuickStart for the OC3 physical interface
- CATTgen data or profile comparison function
What's New on DCT2000 Release 11.0
The SIP protocol upgrades:
- RFC 3856 SIP Presence Event Package, August 2004 (Variant 9)
- RFC 3857 SIP Watcher Information Event Template Package, August 2004
(Variant 9) - RFC 3858 SIP XML Based Format for Watcher Information, August 2004 (Variant 9)
- RFC 3863 SIP Presence Information Data Format (PIDF), August 2004 (Variant 9)
Physical Interface Enhancement:
- mPI(OC3) AAL2-PF protocol
CATTgen Enhancements:
- Sort like scenarios together or hide threaded scenarios in CATTcontroller
- Manual reset of recent changes in the development preferences
- Display summary of call scenarios
What's New on MGTS Release 13.5 and 13.6
- 3GPP Release 5 June 03 BSSAP (A interface testing)
- Japan-SS7 protocol version 1.8
- Transmission of Voice Samples on Traffic Generator on IuCS (m500)
- PESQ for IuCS calls:
° Provides pseudo-real time processing:
- Injects a WAV file in the sending end
- Retrieves the processed WAV file on the receiving end
- PESQ algorithm analyzes the level of distortion and provides feedback
° Is supported for both UTRAN and CN simulation (over IuCS)
- AMR2 (IuFP v.2)
- Iu Milenage Enhancement OPc and K values based on 3GPP TS 35.206,
35.207 and 35.208:
° Verifies connection to an authorized serving network
° Created new PASM action state
- J1 (MTP2 Variant 6) on J1/E1/T1 card
- X•Stream GTP-U echo response (m500 only)
- New MGTS installation enhancements greatly reducing initial configuration time
For a complete set and details of all new capabilities and technical specifications
supported please consult with your Catapult sales representative.
TECHNICAL TIPS
DCT2000 Technical Tip
A few special DCPL variables provide useful information during load test and can be included as part of the StatsView report. These variables are described in the DCT2000 Reference manual (refman.pdf).
&cpu_idle reads the CPU idle percentage (co-processor only)
&available_memory reads the percentage available memory
The System Monitor can set its own log file, but it may be easier to correlate these two
key system parameters with the current system load conditions as part of the StatsView report.
The following variables indicate if the current context is too heavily loaded during a load test:
&receive_queue_length{port} tracks the number of pending received frames on a
port. This can be used to determine whether a connected context or device under test is sending more frames than the context can process given the current program load. If this value is increasing over time, it is a good indication that the current context is too heavily loaded. A port connection from a board context to a workstation context will always have
a zero value.
&send_queue_length{port} tracks the number of outstanding transmitted frames on a port. This can be used to determine whether a connected context or device under test is unable to process the transmitted frames. If this value is increasing over time, it is a good indication that the connected context, device under test, or physical line is too heavily loaded. A port connection from a workstation context to a board context will always have
a zero value. Also, if the test is running on a mCI card and is configured in multiple
VPI/VCI modes, there is a sending queue per channel. The value returned will be based
on the queue associated with the most recent %sendcellheader{port}. If %sendcellheader{port} is null or a null string, then the sum of the queues of all channels
for the given port will be returned.
&wait_queue_length tracks the number of pending events that will trigger a wait statement. In the workstation environment (not co-processor), this can be used to
determine if too many frames are being received from all connected contexts after they
have been dequeued from each port's receive queue and placed on the internal wait
queue (see &receive_queue_length{port}). If this value is increasing over time, it is a good indication that the connected context(s) or device(s) under test are transmitting too many frames given the current workstation CPU load.
Variables read in a co-processor context
will always have a zero value.
MGTS Technical Tip
Configuring the new J1/E1/T1 PPCI
The J1/E1/T1 PowerPCI card supports the dynamic flexibility of multiplexing timeslots to
one logical port when running PASM on channelized J1, E1 or T1.
Physical Links
The 4 link J1/E1/T1 card has four physical J1, E1 or T1 links. Link refers to the physical E1, T1 or J1 resource. On a J1/E1/T1 card, these links are identified as
links 0-3.
Timeslots
Each channelized physical link has multiple 56/64kbps timeslots. The E1 link has
32 and the T1 and J1 links each have 24 timeslots. The J1/E1/T1 card has up to
128 total timeslots for E1.
Channels
Each channel is associated to a timeslot on any of the physical links. The maximum number of channels per J1/E1/T1 card is 124, which is the number of E1 channels per physical link times 4 (31 slots). Note: Timeslot 0 on the E1 physical link is not used. It is grayed out on the GUI and cannot be selected. Once a channel has been assigned to a timeslot, that resource is no longer available.
Logical Ports
Each logical port has the capability to support up to 63 channels. There are four logical ports on each J1/E1/T1 card. These ports are X.1, X.2, X.3 and X.4, where X represents the specific card slot on the PPCI shelf. If a J1/E1/T1 card is in slot 2, then port 1 on the card is 2.1. If a J1/E1/T1 card is in slot 3, then port 3 will be assigned 3.3. A logical port is defined as a set of "channels."
SS7 PASM Node
Each PASM node can handle up to one link set comprised of a maximum of 16 channels. Each of the defined channels can be assigned individually to each node on the network map.
For example: PASM node 1 on logical port 3.1 is mapped to three channels (1,2,3). Channel 1 is assigned to physical link 1, timeslot 4. Channel 2 is assigned to
physical link 1, timeslot 5. Channel 3 is assigned to physical link 3, timeslot 3.
This information is also available in the DCT2000 PowerPCI User Manual and the MGTS 13.6 Release Notes.
Catapult Communications is a leading provider of advanced digital telecom test systems to global equipment manufacturers and service providers. Catapult delivers test systems for over 700 of protocols and protocol variants in the following telecommunication standards: 3G UMTS, cdma2000, VoIP, IMS, GPRS, SS7, and Intelligent Network and more. For more information about Catapult products, please contact your local Catapult office or visit our website at http://www.catapult.com
Sincerely,
Catapult Communications
®2006 Catapult Communications
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