Anritsu’s provides test diversity for O-RAN ecosystem

• Kanagawa, Japan.  PlugFest in Japan hosted by KDDI, NTT DOCOMO, Rakuten Mobile, Softbank and Yokosuka Research Park at Japan Open Testing and Integration Centre. Anritsu joined the PlugFest in collaboration with Rakuten Mobile Inc. and NEC Corporation. The testbed consisted of NEC's O-RU and Anritsu's O-RAN solution. At the PlugFest, O-RAN WG4 conformance tests were conducted by O-RAN WG4 defined S/M/C/U-Plane test scenarios. In addition, End to End throughput performance was evaluated by adding timing errors at the S-Plane.

• Durham, North America. PlugFest hosted by University of New Hampshire's Interoperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL). Anritsu joined the PlugFest in collaboration with Fujitsu Limited (later referred to as Fujitsu). The testbed consisted of Fujitsu's O-RU (O-RAN Radio Unit) and Anritsu's O-RAN test solution. At the PlugFest, "Time Error Injection Tests" on S-Plane and functional tests on status change messages reported by O-RU were validated, together with O-RAN WG4 defined S/M/C/U-Plane test scenarios.

Anritsu's Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) test solution used at the venues consisted of Anritsu's O-DU Emulator, Network Master Pro MT1000A and Signal Analyser MS2850A.

In addition, Anritsu participated in the Joint European O-RAN and TIP PlugFest hosted by Deutsche Telekom, EANTC and Vodafone in Berlin, Germany. Anritsu offered its network tester, the MT1000A, for testbed synchronicity tests. The tester supports synchronicity tests for Sync-E, IEEE 1588 Packet Time Error and Wander Analysis.

The O-RAN has open interoperable interfaces that drives vendor diversity, increases innovation, and improves time to market, Anritsu assert. However, O-RAN provides more challenges for network synchronisation and requires more extensive interoperability and performance testing. The key O-RU testing challenges include how to reduce the complexity of setting O-RAN fronthaul parameters, how to accurately synchronise the device with all network elements, and how to qualify O-RU performance - not only with standardised test cases, but also using the test scenarios closer to a real field network situation. Anritsu has an O-RAN Test Platform to address these challenges.

The Signal Analyser MS2850A, covering 9kHz to 32 or 44.5GHz, is a high-performance RF signal analyser supporting an analysis bandwidth up to 1GHz. It also offers flatness and a spurious-free dynamic range to support wideband communications measurements, such as 5G mobile communications and broadcast satellite equipment.

The Network Master Pro MT1000A is an all-in-one transport network tester for speeds from 1.5 Mbps to 100 Gbps using various technologies and supports PTP/SyncE tests in the Synchronisation Plane.