Testing communications transmission links

The performance of all networks, however sophisticated, is ultimately dependent on the quality and reliability of the underlying communications links. Deregulation of the telecoms industry and ongoing technological change have increased the need for effective transmission and compatibility/conformance testing.

The Phoenix range meets the industry's need for installation, set-up and maintenance testing - of established technologies such as ISDN and SDH/PDH - and newer technologies such as ADSL2+, NGN and EoS - and new applications such as Voice-over-IP and IPTV. Follow the links on the left for an overview and the product name links within the page for more detailed information on our major products.

Hand-held field testers

Phoenix sell and support hand-held testers for a wide range of technologies and speeds - from 50bps to 10Gbps!

Ethernet & Fibre Channel

The SunSet MTT has become a de-facto standard with many carriers for link testing and RFC2544 throughput testing of end-to-end links. The -28, -29 and -30 (Dash 28, 29 and 30) modules test 10/100 and Gigabit Metropolitan Ethernet links and Fibre Channel Storage Area Network (SAN) links. MTT stands for Modular Test Toolkit and the MTT is highly versatile with plug-in interfaces for a wide variety of network topologies. For example, an engineer may use the same MTT for both OTDR optical testing and higher layer ethernet testing on the same call out.

For those who need higher layer functional testing the FrameScope Pro combines link testing of 10/100 and Gig ethernet with discovery and functional network healthcheck of connected systems. FrameScope Pro includes 10/100 and Gigabit, both copper and fibre, in a single non-modular unit - and has options for Triple Play Qos testing of VoIP and IPTV.

SDH

The SunSet SDH and 10G offer 2.048 Mbps right up to 10G testing, along with all the service verification tools you need: ATM, GSM voice and TRAU, A-bis, GPRS over A-bis,V5.1/V5.2,and SS7. Also included are 1.544 Mbps service verification protocols such as GR-303 and SS7.

The -38 (Dash 38) module for SunSet MTT is also available for SDH testing up to STM4

xDSL (ADSL, ADSL2+, HDSL, VDSL etc)

The SunSet MTT is the world's first field xDSL test instruments with plug-in DSL modems and independent Power Spectral Density measurements. Variants of the MTT are suitable for line pre-qualification, installation testing and higher level troubleshooting. MTT modules are available for ADSL, SDSL, HDSL, SHDSL, ADSL2, ADSL2+ and VDSL.

2Mbps E1 and ISDN

The SunSet E20C is an extremely versatile test set - a single unit handling a wide range of linespeeds, protocols and physical interfaces from 50 bps to 2.048 Mbps, including transmission/BERT, SS7, CAS, ISDN, Datacom.

The SunLite E1 is the world's smallest full-featured handheld 2.048 Mbps transmission test set.

2Mbps E1 BERT testing is also provided by the -27 (Dash 27) modules for the modular SunSet MTT.

The Aethra D2500 is a versatile basic and primary rate ISDN tester capable of fulfilling needs in service turnup and maintenance, testing both lines and equipment. Used either stand-alone or with a PC and the Windows-based software, the D2500 provides error-rate analysis and rapid verification of the status of basic and primary channels. The D2500 also provides powerful D-channel signaling and protocol analysis capable of decoding EURO ISDN, DASS2, DPNSS QSIG, 1TR6 and X.25 over ISDN.

Fibre Optic

Agilent Fibre Optic tools include the highly portable mini-OTDR, fibre break locator, power meters and other test equipment.

A micro-OTDR plug in module -35 (Dash 35) is also available for the modular SunSet MTT.

CATV

The well-established Avantron, Calan and Hukk cable modem testers and spectrum analysers for CATV are now part of the Sunrise Telecom range and cover every aspect of installing and maintaining CATV broadband and cable modem networks.

High Performance Transmission Test Sets

Ethernet

Sunrise Telecom's STT(Scaleable Test Toolkit) has been adopted by many carriers as their standard transmission tester for Gigabit and 10Gig Ethernet backbones. The STT Metro Module is packed with features for the installation, maintenance, and verification of packet-based metropolitan and transport networks. By combining thorough, accurate statistics with versatile traffic generation options on multiple ports, the STT Metro is ideal for turning up and troubleshooting complex, multi-layered voice, video, and data services.

NGN SDH

Sunrise Telecom's STT(Scaleable Test Toolkit) has also been adopted by many carriers as their standard transmission tester for 21st Century Networks(21CN) based on NGN SDH.

The STT Optical Network Expert (ONE) Module is a powerful and versatile test module for the STT for testing emerging technologies such as OTN (ITU-T G.709) and next-generation SDH/SONET, as well as traditional SDH/SONET, offering service providers a complete solution for today's metro and core networks. By integrating OTN and EoS (VCAT, GFP, and LCAS) testing into a single, compact unit, the STT ONE module is extremely cost effective because it eliminates the need for multiple instruments.

Optical

The Phoenix Datacom optical test range provides a wide range of optical test equipment, including OTDR, CD and PMD measurement, and DWDM and CWDM OSA analysis. We are able to offer expert advice as to application.

The range includes Modular Network Tester (MNT) and OTDR from Agilent Technologies, STT DWDM and Fibre Analysis Modules from Sunrise Telecom, very high resolution OTDR from Sunrise Luciol and OST stressed-eye compliance testers from Circadiant.

Data, signalling and QoS Analysers

Triple Play protocol analysers for Data, VOIP and IPTV

The Agilent Network Analyzer family provides expert protocol analysis from physical to application layer of the stack with an extensive range of physical interfaces for LAN, WAN, ATM and VoIP.

Part of the family, the Agilent Triple Play Analyzer (TPA) provides the most complete monitoring and troubleshooting tool for installing and and troubleshooting IPTV, VoD, VoIP and data applications. In particular, a single instrument provides integrated analysis of the total traffic - voice, data and video - and their interaction together. (This is an important breakthrough as many test tools look at a single aspect of Triple Play, eg video or VoIP quality, without considering the effect of one application on another.)

Telephony and signaling analysers

Sunrise Telecom's NeTracker is particularly strong for telephony applications and offers an integrated tool to fully verify, monitor, and troubleshoot the signaling and services deployed over PCM, ATM, and LAN networks. The supported architectures include: IMS, NGN, MEGACO/MGCP and mixed (SS7/NGN/IP). NeTracker is also used by service providers and operators during the network planning, and implementation phases thanks to the Call Detail Record generation, intrusive and non-intrusive QoS measurements, network statistics and correlation of messages between different protocols and interfaces.

The Agilent Signaling Analyzer is used by major 3G mobile telephone operators and phone manufacturers - providing installation testing and troubleshooting of 3G systems including traffic analysis and call trace of multi media message services.

The Agilent Voice Quality Tester provides objective testing of analogue voice to PAMS, PSQM and PESQM standards. Agilent VQT is available in a variety of form factors to meet the needs of installation and maintenance testing, troubleshooting in the field, and in-service quality monitoring.

Traffic Generators

Multi-layer realistic traffic generation

Agilent N2X systems stress-test equipment, including switches, routers and server load balancers, networks and services by producing multi-port, multi-interface traffic streams with total control over all traffic parameters such as packet size and variation, errors and losses and data rates. Load modules cater for all major LAN, WAN, ATM and SAN interfaces from 10/100 ethernet up to 40Gigabit.

Agilent Network Tester systems provide the most powerful and flexible solution for testing the performance of Layer 4-7 devices and services. NetworkTester creates a realistic mix of application traffic through its unique ability to simultaneously emulate real voice, video, data and multiple DOS, spam and virus attacks on a single test port. Coupled with the ability to simulate proprietary protocols like P2P, gaming and IM, NetworkTester provides the most realistic application performance system in the market.

Telephony

Navtel InterWatch offers high capacity and high performance Voice over IP testing solutions that enable telecom equipment manufacturers and network providers to verify under full load the characteristics and the design of network elements, such as IMS session border controllers, using a single chassis.  A single Interwatch chassis can provide the "real world" testing needed at every stage from R & D to roll-out - simultaneously testing both signaling and data functionality and performance - with simulation of up to 256,000 unique endpoints with 128,000 RTP streams and thousands of calls per second.

Network Simulators

IP Network simulators

Packetstorm Network Emulator systems provide a "network in a box" which can be used stand-alone or in-circuit with a real network to allow consistent and worst-case testing of networked applications. The Packetstorm system simulates a complete packet-based network with multiple elements in the traffic path (LAN, Router, modem, WAN link etc), each of which can be set with specific parameters for impairments, modifiers and traffic conditioning. Advanced features include:- emulation of Routing & Bridging, Diff Serv with traffic conditioning, ToS emulation, IP monitoring, packet counters and timers, Tcl scripting language, network capture & replay, packet modifiers, multiple LAN, WAN nd ATM network interfaces, network queues, and remote control.

Link simulators

The Vocality Simulator is a high performance simulator of synchronous satellite or leased line links, with complete control of delay, data rates, error conditions and test facilities. The Vocality Simulator works at the bitstream level, allowing realistic and worst-case testing of applications and transmissions over a wide range of simulated communications links.

Arca WAN link simulators allow cost-effective testing of networked applications across topologies such as ISDN and Frame Relay, the simulator providing all the interfaces and behaviours of the relevant network without the cost of using real networks.

To find out more about Phoenix Datacom products, call Phoenix Datacom on 01296 397711 , send an email or use the Request More Info form.

For a full list of Phoenix Datacom products and applications, click here.