Aeroflex Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Aeroflex Holding Corp. (NYSE:ARX), has launched an extended version of its TM500 industry-standard base station tester capable of emulating several thousand LTE user equipments (UE), fading channel models, and LTE-A carrier aggregation functionality in a one-box benchtop unit. The TM500 Test Mobile delivers more leading edge LTE-A development capability with a higher UE density than any other solution on the market.
"Carrier aggregation allows operators to achieve the wider channel bandwidths and higher data rates needed to offer true 4G services," said Ngwa Shusina, product manager at Aeroflex. "The LTE-A features provided by the compact one-box TM500 allow cellular infrastructure vendors to develop carrier aggregation capability and to emulate real network traffic across thousands of terminals, ahead of the widespread availability of real LTE-A handsets."
LTE-A carrier aggregation was first supported on the TM500 in early 2012, and has since been used by operators worldwide to demonstrate the real-world performance of carrier aggregation technology in field environments.
The TM500 Test Mobile platform is the de facto industry standard for testing LTE and LTE-A base stations, and is used by all leading network infrastructure vendors. Aeroflex continues to work with mobile operators and infrastructure vendors to introduce the latest 3GPP features at the earliest opportunity, thus enabling them to develop and roll out the high bandwidth services promised by LTE-A in both FDD and TDD modes for operation.
