LTE Access Performance Testing

The eNodeB is the new radio base station for LTE access networks. It is the lynch pin in delivering the 3GPP's objective of improved radio spectrum efficiency to provide increased capacity and enhanced data rates. The eNodeB plays a fundamental role in managing traffic on the network and fulfilling the quality of experience (QoE) requirements of mobile subscribers. To meet QoE expectations, the eNodeB performs radio resource scheduling and uplink/downlink rate limiting to enforce policy decisions and QoS characteristics associated to different service and subscriber types on the network.

eNodeB testing involves validating multiple levels, including:

• Physical, protocol, and application layer functionality
• Security and handover performance
• User and control plane capacity and throughput
• Policy management and QoS mechanisms for converged voice, video, and data traffic

Ixia offers the industry's most comprehensive LTE access test solution, measuring all aspects of eNodeB functionality, capacity, and performance. Ixia designed its test architecture from the ground up to scale to thousands of simulated UEs (user equipment). It has the flexibility to perform physical, protocol, and application layer testing, and supports security testing and complex handover scenarios. To test policy management and QoS mechanisms, Ixia's LTE access test solution includes Ixia's leading service quality validation that uses both mobile subscriber modeling (at very high load rate) and advanced QoE measurements. The Ixia solution fully isolates the eNodeB by emulating all surrounding nodes, including thousands of UEs/mobile subscribers, adjacent eNodeBs, the mobility management entity (MME), and the evolved packet core (EPC). Unlike other options, Ixia's solution was built for capacity testing - all test functionality exists whether the test scenario is emulating a single UE or thousands of UEs.

Ixia's LTE access solution allows users to:

• Verify there is reliable radio link between mobile subscribers and the network
• Maximize total cell/sector throughput
• Maximize the number of subscribers within a cell/sector
• Test the control (signaling) plane performance of eNodeBs
• Test complex handover scenarios
• Perform service quality validation with subscriber modeling, multiplay traffic generation, and QoE measurements