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Wireless Testing?
Every few months, new mobile phones and technologies hit the market. Many consumers, however, will now be shopping for more than a new phone. After the latest service outages by Clearwire and T-Mobile, many will also be looking for a new carrier.
These outages demonstrate the growing importance - and business value - of network testing. As the complexity of multifunction wireless devices grows, testing has become more complex for both carriers and device manufacturers. In addition, LTE will soon make testing an order of magnitude more difficult for carriers. Coinciding with this growth in complexity is the fast rate of churn among wireless devices.
These challenges are exposing the underlying weaknesses of current testing practices. For instance, carriers seldom conduct true end-to-end testing that includes a phone's applications. Often, they test only whether the phone can send and receive calls, SMS, and data not how well Facebook works. They also test their networks against standards - as opposed to specific devices - while using very few real phones to validate the results. Still, they assume that their network will work for any phone and its applications. Device manufacturers follow a similar approach, testing a few handsets against a standard and then assuming that all models will work on any network worldwide.
As a result, many carriers are making dangerous assumptions about interoperability, placing them at risk for a T-Mobile-style fiasco. It's time for carriers and manufacturers to stop testing in isolation and to revamp their testing processes to address the convergence of software and hardware in these devices. More specifically, they need a standardized way of automating testing and exchanging information, including tests and results. This will allow them to share the work and deliver the best quality products and services to their mutual customers.
Imagine, for example, if Nokia could provide Deutsche Telecom with automated tests for a phone's operation and software. Deutsche Telecom would then be able to run these tests in its lab to validate that this specific device works on its network. This would eliminate the need to build these tests themselves - or just rely on standards. Likewise, Deutsche Telecom could provide Nokia with tests to validate its handset and back-end infrastructure.
Had such an arrangement been in place in the case of Clearwire, there would have been no outage to report on. Clearwire's testing did not keep pace with the regularly scheduled software updates, patches, fixes, and new features of its Motorola network devices. These, too, must be subject to testing prior to network deployment in order to prevent the introduction of new bugs into the network, and to ensure that functionality is not impacted in an unforeseen way.
By efficiently exchanging information and sharing assets on a regular basis, carriers and manufacturers can expedite the testing process. At the same time, they can ensure that all the hardware and software are compatible and functional before making a product or service available to consumers. Without such a system, carriers run the risk of their services or the device's applications not living up to customer expectations. After all, today's consumers are more apt to blame carriers (think AT&T) whenever an application malfunctions on their wireless device (think iPhone). And who wants that call?
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