February 27, 2012. Spirent Communications has announced the addition of Wi-Fi Offload Gateway testing capability to its Spirent Landslide offering. Landslide tests the performance of Wi-Fi Offload Gateways, which handle offloading of data from sources such as Over-The-Top video, as well as traditional services such as voice calling and SMS, from a 3G/4G/LTE cellular network to a Wi-Fi network.
As mobile operators face overwhelming bandwidth demands from data-hungry subscribers, Wi-Fi offloading is an important approach to helping ease congestion and control capital expenditure, Spirent reports. It helps ensure subscriber quality of experience (QoE) by freeing up mobile spectrum for users who are truly mobile and by offering all users higher bandwidths. The Wi-Fi Offload Gateway is a critical element in ensuring seamless and secure service handoff from the mobile network. Unlike competitive products, Spirent’s solution tests the performance and scalability of the Wi-Fi Offload Gateway and the mobile core network, enabling authentication and security scenarios to be verified, as well as handoffs.
Capable of emulating thousands of access points and millions of users, as well as mobile applications and the 2G/3G/4G core network, Spirent’s Wi-Fi offload testing capability on Spirent Landslide supports the testing of authentication, inter/intra Access Point Mobility, and cellular-to-Wi-Fi network mobility at scale under real-world conditions.
“In addition to the home and office, Wi-Fi access is well suited to work at large venues such as sporting events,” said Jeff Schmitz, vice president of the networks and applications group at Spirent. “For example, at the upcoming Olympic games in London or at regularly scheduled sporting events such as soccer, football, and baseball, fans can have a tremendous impact on wireless networks. Smartphone users at these locations are looking to enhance their experience of these events by accessing such related bandwidth-hungry video services as online instant replay, live viewing of other games, and so on. Wi-Fi offloading not only helps to alleviate network access bottlenecks but presents an opportunity for operators to introduce unique and value-added location-based services.”
Spirent is exhibiting its 3G/4G/LTE testing products, including Landslide, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. http://www.spirent.com/Solutions-Directory/Landslide
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