Date: 14/03/2011

Aeroflex adds 3GPP DC-HSDPA rel-9 support to its TM500

Aeroflex Incorporated has announced that its TM500 Test Mobile has added support for the 3GPP DC-HSDPA Release 9 standard to the multiple UE (user equipment, or handset) emulation product. Release 9 is the most recent update to the HSPA+ standards, and provides a maximum data rate of 84 Mbps by enabling concurrent operation of MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output) and DC-HSDPA (Dual Cell High-Speed Download Packet Access).

The TM500 Rel-9 DC-HSDPA Multi-UE Test Mobile enables 3G infrastructure equipment manufacturers to test a DC-HSDPA base station and network against a multiple handset configuration.

This new TM500 model provides full multi-UE implementation of HSDPA Categories 1 - 28, including DC-HSDPA, MIMO, and 64QAM, with support for seamless reconfiguration from Single Cell HSDPA to Dual Cell HSDPA and vice versa, and soft handover for up to six cells. HSUPA categories 1-7 and Continuous Packet Connectivity in Layer 1, HARQ and MAC test modes are also supported.

"The TM500 already supports the 84 Mbps data rate enabled by Release 9's ability to combine MIMO and DC-HSDPA operation," said Tim Beard, WCDMA product manager at Aeroflex Test Solutions. "We have now enhanced the TM500 to incorporate multi-UE support for Release 9, which allows infrastructure engineers to optimize scheduling algorithms and to load test the base station in order to realize the full capacity potential of this higher data rate."