Press Contacts & News Releases
Stephen Hire
Marketing Communications Manager
480 Bath Road
Slough
Berkshire
SL1 6BE
Tel: +44 (0)1628 610391
MarcommsManager@racalinstruments.com

Racal Instruments Offers Handset Manufacturers Choice and Flexibility in Quad Band Conformance Testing Platforms

SLOUGH, BERKSHIRE, UK, May 1, 2003 - Racal Instruments has developed quad band functionality within its 6103G digital radio test platform, providing 850,900,1800 & 1900MHz test capability. This will enable users of the 6103 AIME and 6103 AIME/CT to cover all the popular GSM bands using just one test platform. Racal has also developed proven 850 MHz protocol conformance test cases bringing users of the 6103 AIME/CT system quad band conformance testing capabilities. Orders have already been placed by three of the Top Five mobile handset manufacturers.

Manufacturers face a dilemma in upgrading dual and tri-band test systems, it is costly and can result in lost capacity. In some cases manufacturers may have to sacrifice existing testing capability in the 900 and 1800 MHz bands in order to incorporate the 850 MHz band on an existing platform, necessitating investment in further test equipment. In short to develop a quad band phone can mean having to use two test systems, one for the 850/1900 MHz bands and a second configured for 900/1800/1900 MHz. To meet manufacturers' needs Racal's test platform with quad band test functionality in a single system gives the highest degree of flexibility allowing users to switch between different types of phone without reconfiguration quickly and easily.

In North America the 1900 MHz band is becoming increasingly populated, making the 850 MHz spectrum, conventionally used by analogue phones and whose use is declining, an attractive alternative. Therefore mobile phone manufacturers are now designing products for use in the 850 MHz band in addition to 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz bands and have already deployed to some network operators who have stated that they will not accept devices that do not have 850 MHz capability.

Certified by the PTCRB, the test cases enable GPRS, EGPRS and AMR testing of mobiles for use in the 850MHz band on the same system as the 900,1800 and 1900 MHz test cases required by the certification groups. Protocol conformance testing involves validating the mobile terminals protocol stack by performing 3GPP TS51.010 compliant test cases as specified in North America by the PTCRB, using a validated conformance test system run in the1900 MHz band and requires a subset of the protocol conformance tests performed also in the 850 MHz band.

Products are starting to be rolled out and Racal has already supplied major mobile manufacturers with its latest test cases.

For more information please contact our Marcomms Manager.

Note to editors

Racal Instruments, with over 800 employees and sales of $120 million, designs, manufactures and sells electronic test and measurement equipment and systems to leading high-technology customers throughout the world. It has offices in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, India, PRC, Hong Kong and Korea with a sales and support network in over 80 countries. The Wireless Solutions Group designs and manufactures a range of test and measurement equipment for parametric and protocol testing of mobiles, base stations and networks in design, installation and repair. UMTS, cdmaOne, CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA, GSM, GPRS and EDGE technologies are all covered.