Spirent Communications has announced that it signed a cooperation agreement with Beijing based, China Telecommunications Technology Labs (CTTL).
As a part of this agreement, CTTL, China's leading wireless test laboratory and Spirent, the worldwide leader in Assisted GPS (A-GPS) testing will provide the China market with access to the best test tools, support and expertise to enable successful deployment of next-generation Location Based Services (LBS) on A-GPS enabled mobile devices.
The market for LBS using A-GPS is rapidly expanding worldwide. The Asia Pacific region is expected to show particularly strong growth, with widespread deployment already underway in countries such as Japan and South Korea. With its huge mobile subscriber base and its role as host of the 2008 Olympic Games, China is expected to be the next big market to accelerate its adoption of A-GPS technology.
"As the biggest mobile market in the world, China is eager to embrace the benefits that next-generation of location-based services is delivering in other leading markets. Comprehensive and reliable testing of A-GPS devices is a very important element in the timely and successful introduction of these services," said Zhang Xiang, CTTL's Director of Radio Dept.
"Combining our own extensive wireless test experience with Spirent's subject matter expertise in A-GPS testing will ensure that we are able to play a key role in meeting China's current and future testing needs in this area."
Under the agreement, CTTL will use the Spirent ULTS Location Test System as its standard platform to test the performance of GSM and WCDMA handsets for A-GPS RF Minimum Performance, Signaling Conformance and Secure User Plane (SUPL).
As a lab approved by the Global Certification Forum (GCF) and the PCS Type Certification Review Board (PTCRB), CTTL will cooperate with Spirent for test validation and re-validation work with Spirent ULTS over the next three years.
"We are excited to be engaged in this long-term cooperation with China's leading test lab," said Gene Zhang, vice president and general manager of Asia Pacific at Spirent Communications.
"We have been working closely with top-tier network operators and handset manufacturers in Japan, Korea and elsewhere and are pleased to apply the expertise we have acquired during A-GPS deployments in other parts of Asia to benefit China",
CTTL will also use the Spirent ULTS to offer commercial A-GPS conformance test services to its customers. This is a crucial element in enabling Chinese network operators and handset manufacturers to quickly and successfully deploy A-GPS technologies.
In addition, Spirent will apply its A-GPS standards development experience by cooperating with CTTL to develop an A-GPS standard specific to China's needs.
