EXFO and Rohde & Schwarz have partnered to provide test and measurement (T&M) solutions for on-site commissioning, maintenance and troubleshooting of mobile communication systems. In modern mobile network stations, radio frequency (RF) equipment continues to shift closer to the antennas. Moreover, wireless spectrum is growing in complexity and becoming increasingly susceptible to interference, which is critical to the quality of service. If a service disruption occurs within a base station’s coverage area, the RF technician must quickly identify and correct the issue so that it does not impact the subscriber quality of experience. To this end, the combined solution from EXFO and Rohde & Schwarz provides best-in-class performance, empowering technicians to quickly and accurately troubleshoot RF interference issues, allowing mobile network operators to minimise their opex.
Further, EXFO’s optical real-time traffic flow measurement (RFTM) over a common public radio interface (CPRI), which is supported on the compact FTB-1 Pro test platform, can be connected at the baseband unit and remotely accessed using a mobile device to provide real-time RF spectrum views and quickly detect RF signal interference. Moreover, Rohde & Schwarz’s R&S PR100 portable radio receiver, R&S FPH or the R&S FSH spectrum analysers can be used to easily locate the interference in the field by providing a broad view of the spectrum, not only in the station’s operating band but also in adjacent channels. Once the potential source has been found, RF interference mitigation techniques can be used and simultaneously validated on a mobile device to determine whether the issue has been resolved. Therefore, by leveraging the expertise of both companies, mobile network operators, installers and network service providers would get access to harmonised solutions for a variety of measurement scenarios.
