Agilent announces 3G UMTS assurance solution for faster roll out

October 20, 2004

Agilent Technologies announced the most comprehensive service assurance solution that monitors and manages UMTS networks and new voice, video and data services. This integrated solution offers end-to-end insight into network operation and service performance, and enables wireless carriers to aggregate data from key UMTS interfaces, perform real-time analysis and understand unusual events and trends. Several tier-one carriers in Europe, Asia and America are testing this solution to speed their new services to market and identify and resolve performance issues before subscribers are affected.

Furthering its 3G UMTS initiative to combine standalone products into comprehensive end-to-end solutions, Agilent has integrated its Distributed Network Analyzer, Data Mining Toolkit and Signaling Analyzer solutions. The resulting service assurance solution, Agilent UMTS Performance Analyzer, enables wireless service providers to leverage the wealth of data collected non-intrusively from key UMTS interfaces to better manage the performance of the network and services. To maximize investment and minimize operational expenditure, the solution's data collection and aggregation platform can be leveraged into other areas such as radio frequency (RF) quality of service management, providing a common platform for UMTS network and service assurance.

Flexible reporting allows a wide range of analysis on the collected subscriber data, enabling users to more easily identify and troubleshoot issues across the UMTS network and understand the performance of voice and data services. UMTS Performance Analyzer provides insight into the quality and performance of the Radio Access Network, either in a large area, such as an entire city, or down to a cell or user granularity. It monitors and troubleshoots inter-RNC (radio network controller) handovers and reports on the performance of the network and UMTS and GPRS services.

"Agilent's flexible data collection, analysis, reporting and troubleshooting solution augments our existing UMTS solution portfolio," said Tom White, vice president and general manager of Agilent's Communications Solutions Group. "Our initiative is to provide the industry's broadest range of integrated, end-to-end 3G service assurance solutions that help wireless service providers solve critical operational and business challenges."