Enhanced LTE Protocol Test Suite
Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA – March 10, 2014- GL Communications Inc announced today its enhanced LTE Protocol Analysis and Emulation tools.
Speaking to reporters, Mr. Jagdish Vadalia, Senior Manager Product Development of the company said, “GL's LTE Analyzer is capable of capturing, decoding and performing various test measurements across various interfaces over LTE and IMS networks. GL's MAPS™ - multi-protocol and multi-interface simulation software can be used to simulate almost all elements in the wireless 2G, 3G, and 4G networks. One can also setup a virtual real-time network simulating all the network elements using ‘MAPS™ 2G 3G 4G Wireless Lab Suite.
On the other hand, MAPS™ LTE Emulator supports emulation of several interfaces in LTE and IMS network S1 - MME, X2-AP, eGTP-c (S3, S4, S5, S8, S10, S11 and S16), and Diameter (S6a, S6d, S13, Cx, Dx, Gx, and Rx). It can simulate up to 500 Smartphones (UEs) powering up and down.
He added, “Apart from analyzer's unlimited capturing, decoding, and measurement capability, it also supports variety of protocol stack for decoding S1, S3, S4, S5 (or S8), S6a, S10, S11, S13 and X2 interfaces and Diameter sessions over S6a, S6d, Cx, Dx, Sh, Gx, and Rx interfaces.
The X2 AP (Application Protocol) is the interconnecting interface between two eNodeBs in LTE network and supports both Control Plane and User Plane. The principle Control Plane protocol is X2-AP (X2 Application Protocol) resides on SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol).
GL's MAPS™ LTE X2AP is used to co-ordinate handovers and performs load management between eNodeB (Evolved Node B) network elements - Source eNodeB and Target eNodeB. The MAPS™ X2-AP test tool is designed with specific test cases, as per LTE 3GPP mobile standards.
GL's Message Automation & Protocol Simulation (MAPS™) designed for testing LTE S11, S5/S8 (eGTP) interfaces can simulate MME (Mobility Management Entity), SGW (Serving Gateway), and PGW (Packet Data Network Gateway) network elements. The MAPS™ LTE eGTP gives the users the unlimited ability to edit S11, S5/S8 eGTP-C (Evolved GPRS Tunneling Protocol for Control Plane (eGTP-c) messages and call scenarios (message sequences).
MAPS™ LTE Emulator supports Real-time traffic over GTP can be emulated using the Mobile Traffic Simulation (ETH101, and ETH102) modules. It also supports powerful utilities like Message Editor, Script Editor, and Profile Editor which allow new scenarios to be created or existing scenarios to be modified using message templates and profiles. "Message sequences" are generated through scripts. "Messages" are created using message templates.”
Mr. Vadalia further added, “Within LTE, MAPS™ Diameter can simulate S6a, S6d, S13, Cx/Dx, Gx, Rx, and Sh interfaces and test network elements such as the MME (Mobility Management Entity), HSS (Home Subscriber Server), AF (Application Function), PCRF (Policy and Charging Rules Function), CSCF (Call Session Control Function), SGSN (Serving GPRS Support Node), PCEF (Policy and Charging Enforcement Function), EIR (Equipment Identity Register), PDN GW (Packet Data Network Gateway), and AS (Application Server).
The MAPS™ Diameter gives the users the unlimited ability to edit messages on supported interfaces to support various procedures such as Location Management, Subscriber Data Handling, Authentication, Fault Recovery, and Notification procedures over S6a interface; AA-Request/Answer, Re-Auth-Request/Answer, Abort-Session-Request/Answer, and Session-Termination-Request/Answer procedure over Rx interface; Mobile Equipment Identity Check Procedure over S13 interface; Authentication Authorization (AA) procedure over Rx and Gx interface; User Data Handling procedure over Sh interface.”