Testing 3G Mobile Network Infrastructures

The requirements and solutions for testing 3G universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) networks is discussed. The problems faced by UMTS networks are differentiated such as network element instability, network element interworking, multivendor interworking (MVI), configuration faults and networking planning faults. The problem symptoms in UMTS tend to travel faster across the network due to largely IP based nature of network. The symptom to root cause correlation requires highly specialized testing infrastructure which allows time correlated measurements at multiple remote locations of network