Viavi Solutions announced a new interference hunting solution today, addressing a challenge mobile network operators will increasingly face as mobile networks proliferate and crowd airwaves.
The company’s new InterferenceAdvisor is a fully automated interference hunter, which Viavi said could significantly cut down the time it takes to locate interference sources: From several days or weeks to just hours.
Viavi said it is hoping to address interference problems created by the ever-increasing number of mobile networks, a problem that will only get worse as the Internet of Things becomes more prominent.
“As networks become denser, interference will increase,” said Monica Paolini, president and founder of Senza Fili Consulting, according to a Viavi press release. “In many cases, service providers use small cells and Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) that share spectrum channels with macro cells. In these environments, interference may negatively impact the customer experience unless operators move to mitigate interference aggressively”
The InterferenceAdvisor’s features include:
-
A light-weight, portable Omni antenna
-
An automated interference area indication and navigation guide
-
Voice prompts to direct the cell technician to the suspected interference location
-
Full spectrum control
-
Display for interference signal monitoring
Furthermore, because the solution is all managed from a single Wi-Fi enabled Android tablet, it enables a single RF engineer to identify and locate the interference source on the go.
Viavi’s hope is that between the solution’s low cost of ownership and the reduced capacity needed to find interference sources, they can be quickly addressed, reducing the impact to users.
“Mobile users near the interference source experience degraded call success rates, increased dropped calls, decreased battery life, poor voice quality and reduced data throughput. We’re pleased to offer the industry a cost-effective, easy-to-use solution for detecting, locating and eliminating these sources of RF interference,” said Kevin Oliver, Viavi’s vice president and general manager of its converged instruments and virtual test, in the release.
Viavi Solutions is a global provider of network test, monitoring and assurance solutions, delivering end-to-end visibility across physical, virtual and hybrid networks.
The release of InterferenceAdvisor comes at an interesting time for the company, as a group of shareholders have been pressuring the CEO to alter its strategy and sell off the company’s service enablement business unit.
For more:
- see the Viavi press release
- learn more about InterferenceAdvisor
Related articles:
Viavi shareholder wants company to shift strategy, consider sale
North America leads worldwide gigabit deployments, Viavi database reveals
Viavi's high-frequency field tester will help Comcast, others transition to DOCSIS 3.1