Spirent Communications, a global network, devices and services testing company, has announced a tie-up with China Mobile's research division - China Mobile Research Institute.
The agreement will see it verify the performance of the division's evolved packet core (EPC) network.
This follows China Mobile's purchase of Spirent Landslide to test its 3G packet core.
Spirent says its Landslide product will enable China Mobile to model user behaviour and create traffic over the control and data planes by emulating real-world calls from millions of smartphones.
The solution was selected to test the performance of the EPC, including mobility management entity, serving gateway, packet data node gateway, and policy and charging rules function.
Ross Cassan, director of product marketing at Spirent Communications, says Spirent Landslide's integrated test cases and GUI-based automation allow engineers to model carrier-specific subscriber behaviour at extreme scale.
"Spirent Landslide allows China Mobile to ensure the mobile core network delivers a high quality of service, will accommodate growth in new subscribers and traffic, and resolves issues in their multi-vendor ecosystem."
According to the test and measurement company, Spirent Landslide is the only solution in the industry which is able to emulate the complex behaviour of today's smartphone subscribers.
"The solution enables carriers to generate busy hour call attempt models, including voice over LTE mobility scenarios, LTE to 3G to WiFi handovers, and mobile application traffic - helping them reduce the risk of network outages and offer a better user experience," says Angus Robertson, VP of segment marketing at Spirent.
African strategy
Spirent Communications offers a portfolio of solutions to test data centres, cloud computing and virtualised environments, high-speed Ethernet networks and services, 3G/4G wireless networks and devices, network and application security, and positioning technologies.
Robertson says while the company is not currently active in the African market, it has by no means ruled out deploying its services on African soil.
"Africa is a different market and our strategy there is a reactive one. It has been challenging entering the market, but we are always looking out for service providers who are opening up a new mobile network or fixed-line business - that is where our opportunity lies."
He says request for proposals with "excruciating requirements" is one of the challenges Spirent faces with African service providers. "But indications are this is changing."
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