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To satisfy growing consumer demand, the mobile industry is relying heavily on advances in location technology to enable a new wave of creative LBS applications. Spirent continues to develop innovative test solutions that help bring new location technologies to market faster and with better performance. Spirent’s new LBS test solution for LTE devices is built on top of the company’s market-leading Position Location Test System (PLTS) and UMTS Location Technology Solution (ULTS). Spirent solutions are already used by all the leading industry players to test location technologies such as Assisted GPS (A-GPS) and A-GLONASS in CDMA and WCDMA devices.



A critical enabler of LBS on LTE networks is a new protocol from the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) called Secure User Plane Location (SUPL) version 2.0. SUPL 2.0 enables A-GPS and other location technologies to be employed across LTE, CDMA and WCDMA networks. It also supports the use of hybrid location technology combinations. The first test offerings from Spirent include SUPL 2.0 protocol conformance for LTE/CDMA and LTE/WCDMA dual-mode devices. Another test area supported by Spirent is standalone GPS performance while LTE data transfers are in process.



“No legacy protocol could do what SUPL 2.0 can, so major network operators have decided to make it a requirement to enable LBS across all the cellular technologies supported by an LTE device,” said Rob VanBrunt, vice president of Spirent’s Wireless business. “In some cases it will also be used for E911. Spirent has made major contributions to development of the OMA’s protocol conformance tests, helping to make SUPL 2.0 a reality.”



In addition to its technical advantages, SUPL 2.0 enables new revenue opportunities for the industry, with features such as Area Event triggering. This new capability allows applications to automatically alert users when they enter or leave a pre-defined boundary such as a shopper receiving updates on the best deals from a store upon entering a shopping mall. Mobile coupon providers and creative advertising agencies are eagerly awaiting this type of capability which is expected to trigger a wave of new innovation in the LBS application marketplace.



Spirent has already implemented more than 75 percent of the OMA’s conformance test cases, enabling the industry to start validating SUPL 2.0 capability in devices. Additionally, Spirent offers performance testing beyond basic conformance requirements and is working with industry leaders to define A-GPS performance test over SUPL 2.0.