Every problem instantly solved by on the spot experts
Telecom equipment maker HFCL has launched a 5G Lab Service so that middle eastern, african and european telcos can perform an express delivery of their desired network. They plan to expedite the process of network building with a lab that can simulate any scenario, engineers who have tackled these problems before and technicians who know every technicality. By assembling all this expertise in one place, they promise they can cope with any eventuality.
Telecom operators are struggling to blend multi-vendor networks with cloud native technology while supporting multiple frequency bands for uses that diversify across the Consumer, Enterprise and Industry sectors, according to HFCL MD Mahendra Nahata. These challenges can be simplified by a systems integrator that specialises in these jobs for a living. The HFCL 5G Lab-as-a-Service provides an automated test environment for the private sector, academia and government to work together on take their inventions from concept to reality.
The biggest time saver and ambition fulfiller is a sandbox for rapid prototyping of 5G use cases. This simulates the conditions of industries such as manufacturing, transport, health and retail. The 5G Lab will help to create pre-integrated and pre-validated 5G solutions for Low Mobility Large Cells needed for an efficient rollout of rural mobile broadband in the country.
“Integration of multi-vendor, multi-technology systems is complex,” said Nahata, “you have to validate and optimise endless disaggregated components of hardware, software, cloud and network functions into one seamless deployment of 5G networks.”
HFCL’s ‘state-of-art’ 5G Lab will simplify the job for telecom operators, network equipment providers, system integrators and IoT device manufacturers, said Nahata. The service puts all the pieces in place to help them analyse, integrate and validate the performance and powers of their products in a real 5G network. The lab is equipped with a multi-vendor 5G network and test tools that include a signal analyser and signal generator for RF conformance tests, O-RAN studio, PTP conformance test equipment and anechoic chamber. HFCL has built a versatile, rapid-response DevOps-based test system for automated lab validation, field deployment and service automation.
The 5G Lab-as-a-service (LaaS) will help technology providers with standard compliance and interface testing (3GPP); feature testing including functional, stress and performance testing; Proof of concept, pre-deployment and field testing. All will be validated on end user devices, network functions, infrastructure and applications. HFCL said it will provide access to teams with expertise in DevOps, CI/CD, Kubernetes and cloud native technologies, all of which are in short supply but necessary for testing in 5G environments.