Advance 5G deployment with VIAVI RF field test portfolio

Strong demand for mobile data, together with anticipation of new 5G applications, is driving service providers to accelerate the deployment of their 5G networks, while ensuring existing mobile service is not compromised. As such, service providers are under pressure to reduce deployment time to meet the constant network demand even as they reduce operating expenses.

VIAVI has worked closely with service providers to help them achieve these goals by delivering wide-ranging enhancements for its industry-leading RF test portfolio, including the CellAdvisor 5G, OneAdvisor-800 and InterferenceAdvisor solutions.

Kevin Oliver, Vice President and General Manager, Converged Instruments and Virtual Test, VIAVI, said: “As service providers build out dense 5G networks, the potential for RF interference grows exponentially, complicating deployment, management and troubleshooting, which can quickly lead to poor service quality and subscriber churn.

“Our robust portfolio of RF field test solutions leverages years of test and measurement expertise across the full network lifecycle, removing complexity from the troubleshooting process so that service providers can easily and confidently resolve performance issues for all types of cell sites.”

CellAdvisor 5G

The first field-portable base station test solution in the market, CellAdvisor 5G now supports Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) and Non-Stand Alone (NSA) functionality, delivering a single solution for deploying and maintaining 5G and LTE networks. Enhanced CellAdvisor 5G with DSS and NSA modes enables field engineers to quickly verify 5G and LTE signal performance against industry standards.

While NSA and DSS technologies allow service providers to increase 5G service speed, they also introduce  new challenges in identifying the root cause of poor service quality. With the addition of DSS and NSA support on CellAdvisor 5G, spectral or signal quality issues can be quickly isolated with simple over-the-air measurements, offering one easy-to-use solution for validation of 5G and LTE performance, accelerating 5G-NR deployment in existing LTE bands.

OneAdvisor-800

The VIAVI OneAdvisor-800 all-in-one cell site installation and maintenance tool is designed to meet the evolving needs of service providers and field technicians as they scale mobile network infrastructure. A new spectrum analysis module, SPA06MA-O, is now available for the maintenance phase of the service lifecycle to further streamline cell site troubleshooting.

Maintenance technicians can stop carrying multiple stand-alone tools that make their job harder and can perform all the key cell site tests — coax sweep test, fiber OTDR test, over the air spectrum analysis, and RFoCPRI analysis — with one easy-to-use tool. The new spectrum analysis module for the OneAdvisor-800 makes tower troubleshooting faster and simpler with a workflow user interface that carefully guides technicians through pre-configured common test processes, ensuring that every job is completed in the same way and to the same specifications.

InterferenceAdvisor

Rounding out the enhancements to the comprehensive radio access field test portfolio from VIAVI, the fully automated interference hunting solution InterferenceAdvisor now supports the CellAdvisor 5G and OneAdvisor-800. The InterferenceAdvisor software communicates with VIAVI RF field test instruments to retrieve RF power measurements (Peak, RSSI, Channel).

By creating an interference signal power heat-map during a drive test, this solution automatically detects the particular service area with the highest presence of interference.

The InterferenceAdvisor solution significantly simplifies RF troubleshooting, overcoming the challenges of increasingly crowded airwaves that can lead to signal interference and adversely affect customer experience. VIAVI developed InterferenceAdvisor to enable service providers to anticipate and respond to these challenges, helping to optimize customer experience while managing the costs of 5G deployment and management.