Anritsu Upgrades MT1000A Test Function for 5G Network
Anritsu Corporation has upgraded a synchronous measurement function for the company’s Network Master Pro MT1000A, the industry’s smallest- in-class tester supporting mobile networks up to 100 Gbps.
Fifth-generation (5G) networks are expected to support increasing future numbers of applications and services, such as hi-definition video streaming, autonomous driving, IoT sensing, smart factories, etc.
By upgrading this MT1000A test function, Anritsu hopes to facilitate the construction of time-synchronous infrastructure, a key technology supporting 5G networks.
The MU100090B is a GNSS disciplined oscillator supporting GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, Beidou and QZSS. It receives signals from each of this GNSS to output a UTC-traceable reference time signal as well as 10-MHz signals as a time-synchronous, high-accuracy reference timing supplied to the portable MT1000A, supporting SyncE Wander and PTP tests up to 25 Gbps for measuring network time synchronization.
Furthermore, multiple MT1000A testers at various remote sites can be operated and monitored from the central office using the Site Over Remote Access MX109020A (SORA) software to help quickly pinpoint synchronization problems.
Base stations can be synchronized using wired-network technologies called SyncE and PTP, which require both measurements of the network time-synchronization performance when installing and maintaining a cell site, along with guaranteed network performance by the network operator.
Moreover, the O-RAN Alliance, which is a mainstream promoter of base-station multi vendors, increasingly requires tests of overall mobile network time-synchronization performance to assure interconnectivity.
Time-synchronization quality is indicated by drift from coordinated universal time (UTC), so precise time-synchronization measurement requires expensive infrastructure to acquire UTC with high accuracy. This can be a challenge at the installation and maintenance of many cell sites.
Anritsu has developed many test instruments for measuring the jitter and wander of transport networks since the SDH/SONET era. Adding this new High-Performance GNSS Disciplined Oscillator MU100090B to the line of modules for the portable, battery-operated MT1000A will help simplify on-site I&M time-synchronization tests.
