News - Board and System Test

Conformance Test for IMS Emergency Services Calls

06 May 2014 - Mobile device and handset manufacturers can soon certify that their products conform to the 3GPP protocols for ‘emergency services calls over IMS’ with the introduction by Anritsu of the first PTCRB-approved test case. Anritsu has added the new protocol test cases for IMS (IP Multimedia Sub-system) emergency services calls to the suite of test cases supported on the widely used ME7834L Protocol Conformance Test (PCT) system.

Conformance with the IMS emergency services protocol is set to become an important requirement for handsets running on LTE and LTE-Advanced cellular networks in the US and elsewhere. Voice calls on these IP-based networks are normally routed via an IMS architecture as a Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) service. As IMS-based voice service begins to gain more widespread adoption, it has become an essential requirement of public safety that IMS technology should reliably support calls to emergency services such as the police and ambulance services, as 2G and 3G network technologies already do. Members of the public will clearly want to know that they can rely on this new technology in case of emergency calls, and will put much faith into operators and handset suppliers that sufficient testing of the emergency service calls has been made.

The mobile phone industry standardisation body “3GPP”, which draws up standards for the tests which are used to certify conformance to 3G and 4G protocols, had previously approved the standard as ready for conformance testing of a device’s capability to make IMS emergency services calls.

Now the PTCRB North American mobile phone approvals body, which is responsible for approving that both that the test platforms implement the protocol test standards properly and the devices have implemented correctly, has approved the first IMS emergency services protocol conformance test for the Anritsu ME7834L PCT. The Anritsu PCT already offered device certification solutions for VoLTE and SMS over IMS. This means that users of the ME7834L can use a complete suite of PTCRB-approved protocol test cases for IMS voice and text services for the latest LTE and LTE-Advanced user equipment.

Bob Kersey, Director of Marketing in Anritsu’s Wireless Protocol Test Group, said: ‘By continuing to be first to market with new conformance test capabilities, Anritsu is helping its customers accelerate the introduction of high-value products implementing the latest technologies, such as Carrier Aggregation and IMS, which hold the greatest appeal to both consumers and carriers.’

www.anritsu.com/

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