Intertek plumps for Rohde & Schwarz 5G NR tester

Designed for 5G NR signalling test in sub 6 GHz (FR1) and mmWave (FR2) frequency bands, the R&S CMX500 radio communication tester seamlessly integrates into Intertek's existing Rohde & Schwarz test systems.

Mike Thorpe, Product Manager from Rohde & Schwarz, says, "As the industry leader in 3GPP conformance and network operator test solutions for LTE, WCDMA and GSM, Rohde & Schwarz is ideally positioned to meet the industry's testing needs of 5G NR today and well into the next decade. The key to this is the R&S CMX500, which is a brand new platform that has been designed specifically to meet the testing needs of 5G with its modular, state-of-the-art hardware and modernised software to maintain flexibility and improve test efficiency. We are proud to offer Intertek a test solution that can work together seamlessly with the world's most widely used radio communications tester, the R&S CMW500, to cover all 5G wireless device test applications."

Network operators are driving LTE-A Pro features to boost 5G NR data rates in non-standalone (NSA) mode and to ensure that LTE provides '4.9G' performance if 5G service is unavailable.

Existing test solutions built upon the R&S CMW500 by Rohde & Schwarz can be cost-effectively extended to support 5G NR FR1 standalone (SA) and NSA, TDD and FDD modes, with the simple addition of an R&S CMX500.

Leveraging the feature-rich R&S CMW500 is critical because 5G devices must also pass LTE, WLAN and Bluetooth(R) low energy (LE) tests.

LTE Release 14 and 15, 1024QAM, WLAN 802.11ax signalling, BLE 4.2 and 5.0 signalling, and more are features recently added to the R&S CMW500 software.