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Press Release

EMT Labs Strengthens CTIA OTA Testing Capabilities to Deliver Improved Mobile Device Validation

Sunnyvale, Calif. – (June 16, 2015) — EMT Labs (Electro Magnetic Test, Inc.) selected Spirent Communications as the exclusive vendor of MIMO and A-GNSS Over the Air (OTA) solutions for comprehensive CTIA OTA testing. EMT Labs’ state-of-the-art facility is now equipped with a full anechoic chamber system for OTA testing. 

With CTIA’s existing A-GNSS OTA test procedures and the upcoming release of the MIMO OTA test plan, OTA testing is rapidly gaining importance as labs look to support this critical and mandatory test requirement. With the addition of Spirent’s solutions, EMT Labs is well positioned to become a CTIA Authorized Testing Laboratory (CATL) for MIMO OTA testing, making it one of the few facilities around the world offering test capabilities in this area. EMT Labs had selected Spirent’s A-GNSS OTA solution for LTE, WCDMA, GSM and CDMA, and is already an approved CATL for A-GNSS OTA testing.

“We are very excited to offer MIMO OTA test capability to our customers looking to be compliant with the soon-to-be-mandated CTIA MIMO OTA test plan,” said Jay Gandhi, president of EMT Labs. “By partnering with Spirent, the recognized leader in OTA testing, we are well-positioned to deliver support for this critical test methodology and are looking forward to bringing unique value to our customers in this new and challenging test area.”

Conventional MIMO testing performed over a cabled RF connection, otherwise referred to as conducted testing, can be limited in terms of the insights it provides into device performance, as it does not take antenna implementation into account and is not a true representation of how the device is used in the real world. In contrast, OTA testing introduces a controlled environment through radiated testing and the resultant Radio Frequency (RF) channel conditions thus mimic real world behavior far more closely.

In the case of location-based applications such as E911and compliance to CTIA A-GNSS test plans, a complete picture of A-GNSS antenna performance is very important. Similar to MIMO OTA testing, A-GNSS OTA Testing helps to accurately evaluate A-GNSS device performance in a radiated environment capable of creating realistic scenarios. 

“The mobile device space is getting increasingly competitive and emulating real world scenarios is imperative,” said Saul Einbinder, vice president of Marketing, Wireless at Spirent Communications. “Mobile devices today employ complex technologies and conducted testing can only reveal part of the story. The answer to this challenge lies in testing under real-world user conditions that OTA testing allows. Spirent has been a long-standing contributor to the CTIA standards working groups and this expertise has been incorporated into our OTA test solutions.  It is this value that we bring to the table in this key partnership with EMT Labs.”

For more information on OTA Testing including MIMO and A-GNSS visit: http://www.spirent.com/Solutions/Wireless-Device-Radio-Technologies 

Tags: Spirent, EMT Labs, MIMO OTA, A-GNSS OTA , CTIA Test plan, VoLTE E911, Radiated v/s conducted test, CTIA A-GNSS OTA v3.5, Anechoic Chamber, MIMO OTA Test automation

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