How to test and select the best chipset for your network?
Chipsets can be tested with special software that will stress the analog frontend as well as the overall performance in terms of speed, bit faults, and data throughput given the different variables of the Physical Layer that will affect the performance of the Service. There are many parameters which can vary even independently from each other, like i.e. temperature of cables, environmental effects, aging, etc.
Specific hurdles in the access network and in the home are also part of the Physical Layer characteristics, which will define the quality of the Service. Chipset Stress/Performance Tests take into account all these variables enabling Service Providers to get a better picture of the performance to be expected in their network.
Stress/performance tests typically are not covered by Standard committees, since Standards only define interoperability test cases and benchmarks. Modems and DSLAMs that meet the Standard are considered as interoperable and good modems, but do not give any guarantee that the selected chipset is the best choice for real live network performance, as they will depend on the characteristics of the network.
This is where 'Performance measured with Sparnex Instruments' comes in. It allows for Chipset Stress Tests according Service Providers' network characteristics in addition to Standard compliance tests. It is the next big thing in improving the Service and getting more customers on board because testing with Sparnex Instruments allows the Service Provider to exploit the last 35 % of the access network that suffers from network constraints.
Chipset vendors can improve their designs if they can get a good representative sample of these characteristics as well as the tools to simulate them. Sparnex Instruments Physical Layer testers do both: tools especially designed to characterize the network, enables the programmable Physical Layer platforms to exactly simulate the actual network environment.
Service Providers who know the general characteristics of their network will use Sparnex Instruments to improve the quality and the speed of the Services.