[SatNews] GL Communications' Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a 3rd generation mobile technology evolved from GSM (2nd generation) technology.

It uses W-CDMA (Wideband CDMA) as radio access technology. With increased spectral efficiency and higher bandwidth, the UMTS network can support greater data rates as well as voice and video data to the wireless end-users. The underlying transport layer for UMTS can be Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), or Internet Protocol (IP). UMTS being an access network in the mobile communication area provides a common interface to both GSM and GPRS core network. UMTS is capable of handling both Circuit-Switched (CS) as well as Packet-Switched (PS) data simultaneously through its UTRAN network.

UMTS separates the user plane from control plane, radio network plane from the transport network plane, access network from the core network, and access stratum from the non-access stratum. Separation of transport network subsystem and radio network subsystem enables the UMTS to use multiple transport layer mechanism. IP and ATM are the most preferred transport network layer protocol used in the UMTS. ATM based UMTS network is more popular since it ensures various QoS and Classes of Services to the end user.

GL's UMTS Test Suite
GL's UMTS Test Suite consists of both UMTS Analyzer and Emulator covering all the major interfaces in the UMTS network. The Analyzer provides capturing and decoding capabilities across various interfaces. And the emulator is capable of simulating the major interfaces across the Circuit-Switched (CS) as well as Packet-Switched (PS) data in the UTRAN network. The suite provides wide-ranging capabilities that meet the versatile testing of UMTS network

UMTS Protocol Analyzer
GL's UMTS protocol analyzer is capable of capturing, decoding and performing various test measurements across various interfaces i.e. Iub, Iur, IuCS and IuPS interfaces of the UMTS network. In addition, it supports ATM as the transport layer.

The analyzer helps in fault diagnosis and troubleshooting of UMTS network. Multiple instances of UMTS Analyzer can run simultaneously capturing data (real time and off-line) on several T1 E1 lines. It is also capable of capturing & reassembling frames that were transmitted with Inverse Multiplexing. IMA combines up to 8 T1 E1 links to form a single high-speed connection with flexible bandwidth options.

For more information, please visit the UMTS Protocol Analyzer infopage at this direct link