US : Catapult Communications was recently awarded orders for their DCT2000 test systems by several leading network equipment manufacturers in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

The Long Term Evolution (LTE) test systems are based on Catapult's flagship DCT2000 product, allowing equipment manufacturers and network service providers to test both protocol functionality and network capacity for voice traffic and high-bandwidth wireless services such as web browsing, streaming video and multimedia messaging. Shipments of the LTE test systems began early this year.

The DCT2000 supports the most current LTE Release 8 protocols and is well suited to LTE testing, specifically for the unique test requirements of a new network element known as the enhanced Node B. Adam Fowler, Catapult Marketing Vice President, said "The eNode B should be tested from all sides concurrently, as there are certain functions that can only be tested when you surround the device, stimulating and evaluating all interfaces in coordination." The DCT2000 simulates neighboring eNode Bs, the core network, and user equipment with our UE simulation partners. In this way the test engineer is able to coordinate the control and user data streams on all network and user equipment interfaces.

The DCT2000 supports equipment manufacturers and service providers in all phases of testing, from feature tests to very high capacity stress tests. It supports multiple, simultaneous protocol varieties and offers standard application scripts as well as graphical tools for user test script development. Depending on the test requirements, the DCT2000 system can be configured for different protocol testing, or go from functional testing to load testing.