3GPP Testing

Test Events

Small Cell LTE Remote Plugfest

This was the third event in the Small Cell LTE series organised by ETSI CTI and the SCF, and the first one fully remote: from all over the world including Europe, Asia and North America, companies connected their equipment to the remote test infrastructure and tested their solutions from their own labs.

The main features addressed during the test sessions were Closed Subscriber Group (CSG) which allows to reduce the signalling load on access networks, Voice over LTE (VoLTE), Emergency Alerts (CMAS), as well as mobility. 

To make remote testing among small cell equipment and core networks possible, ETSI deployed a VPN based secure transport network interconnecting them. On top of it, a flexible LTE network allowed participants to evaluate the interoperability of their solutions with any possible testing partner. Recent enhancements in ETSI’s Plugtests™ tool suite have facilitated interaction among companies and ensured consistent reporting of results.

Over 70 reported test sessions and 500 documented test results were issued over the two week event.

Second Small Cell LTE Plugfest

The 2nd Small Cell LTE Plugfest was organised by the ETSI Centre for Testing and Interoperability in partnership with the Small Cell Forum, and hosted by Orange Labs in Paris from 23 June to 02 July 2014.

These series of Plugfests aim to cultivating an effective ecosystem of interoperable small cells, helping to debug vendor implementations and drive the resolution of standards ambiguities and gaps. These activities help to provide operators and consumers with a wider choice of small cell products while also facilitating economies of scale to bring the small cell mass market closer

Multi-vendor Self Optimizing Networks (SON) and voice over LTE were two of the topics given attention at the fifth Plugfest in the series, which was also the second one to focus exclusively on LTE small cells and saw attendance almost double compared to previous year’s event.

The scope of this 2nd LTE Plugfest included various small cell LTE variations. Testing concentrated on S1, X2 and management interface (TR-069) and covered testing areas such as Regression, Handover, Mobility (Outbound, Inbound), Voice Support via CS Fall-back schemes, Voice and Video over LTE, CMAS and SON. As well as testing small cell/macro handover and security gateways, another key area of focus was the testing of multi-vendor SON in heterogeneous networks.

Learn more or download the Test Report.

VoLTE QoS Assessment Technology Evaluation Plugtests

CTI run a Technology Evaluation Plugtests on end to end QoS assessment for VoLTE. The event was held at ETSI headquarters, from 18 to 20th of November 2013. This Plugtests aimed at validating the different approaches described in TS 103 189 "End-to-end QoS assessment for VoLTE and RCS", which included:

• End to end tests based on instrumental assessment of speech samples. These tests were performed at both the acoustic and electrical interfaces which allowed comparing both methodologies. 
• End-to-end tests based on functional parameters for voice services
• Simultaneous network performance evaluation

The event was supported by different organizations providing the test tools and LTE / IMS network infrastructure. Over 76% of the TS was validated with several LTE devices. Learn more or download the Test Report.

First Small Cell LTE Plugfest

The primary objective of the first Small Cell LTE Plugfest, organised by the ETSI Centre for Testing and Interoperability and the Small Cell Forum in June 2013, was to demonstrate the effectiveness of the 3GPP LTE standards in supporting interoperability between Small Cells and Evolved Packet Core (EPC) equipment from different vendors. The Plugfest was supported by 16 companies including equipment vendors, test tool vendors and companies providing test network infrastructure. Learn more or download the Test Report.

RCS, VoLTE IOT Event

The MSF, GSMA and the ETSI Centre for Testing and Interoperability organized a RCS VoLTE Interoperability Event in 2012 focused on validating core network interfaces to ensure multi-vendor deployment strategies for RCS and VoLTE services. The event was collocated with the “RCS, VoLTE & Beyond” Workshop.

The Test Plan covering 5 different Test Scenarios was based on ETSI IMS Network Testing Technical Committee (TC INT) Test Specifications for IMS Network to Network Interface, RCS and IMS & EPC Interoperability (TS 186 011, TS 102 90, TS 103 029). Learn more in the RCS VoLTE IOT 2013 White Paper