Protocols like CDMA2000 herald the long-awaited arrival of third-generation (3G) mobile services. As such services are rolled out, however, equipment manufacturers and service providers need to be absolutely sure that their new technologies work. After all, this equipment will need to sustain a growing customer base. Spirent Communications has announced two significant steps to prepare for 3G: a new product and a new partner.

Both the product and the partner were introduced with the company's new carrier-scale CDMA2000 performance-benchmarking tool. That tool was co-developed with Scientific Software Engineering, Inc. (www.sseworks.com). The CDMA2000 Performance Test System builds upon existing test tools for GPRS, W-CDMA, and WLAN.

The system evaluates 200,000 mobile systems per test server and six million mobile systems per application. It includes all of the key emulation and performance elements for benchmarking current and next-generation mobile-IP and simple-IP core infrastructure. It also covers both home agents and foreign agents alone and in combination. Keep in mind that the scalability, reliability, and robustness of IP wireless applications directly depend upon the performance of these key devices.

For network-equipment manufacturers, this test system offers the chance to benchmark systems before trial; identify session-capacity limits; measure call-setup performance; and more. Service providers will benefit from improved evaluations prior to vendor selections. They also should be able to identify performance ceilings.

The list prices for this product start at $160,000 for a base system with one Test Administration Server and one Test Server. Additional Test Servers are $85,000 list. Bundles are available with three and five Test Servers. The performance-benchmarking tool is available now.

Spirent Communications
26750 Agoura Rd., Calabasas, CA 91302;(818) 676-2300, FAX: (818) 880-6299, www.spirentcom.com.