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Azimuth Systems, a provider of wireless broadband test equipment and channel emulators for LTE (News - Alert), WiMAX, 2G/3G cellular and Wi-Fi technologies, has introduced an enhanced 802.11 a/b/g/n Client Performance Test Suite, which is an integrated solution that enables users to more easily and quickly benchmark performance, interoperability and functionality of Wi-Fi devices, over a broad range of user environments.

 

Azimuth's new 802.11 a/b/g/n Client Performance Test Suite runs on company’s ADEPT-n MIMO test platform, and DIRECTOR II test executive platform for automation.

 

The new automated test suite provides a set of complete automated test scripts, which streamline the testing of 802.11 a/b/g single antenna or 802.11n multi antenna Wi-Fi client devices.

 

For those not aware, IEEE (News - Alert) 802.11 is a set of standards that carry out WLAN computer communication in the 2.4, 3.6 and 5 GHz frequency bands.

 

George Reed, vice president of marketing and product management at Azimuth Systems (News - Alert), said that with the IEEE's recent ratification of the 802.11n standard, the company expects that the trend toward 802.11n will continue and that interoperability and backward compatibility will emerge as key factors in driving growth and adoption.

 

“Azimuth's new 802.11 a/b/g/n Client Performance Test Suite provides an efficient and cost effective set of tests to insure validation and quality control for both legacy 802.11 a/b/g devices and newer 802.11 a/b/g/n devices,” Reed added.

 

The company’s new offering allows for repeatable application-level performance testing of Wi-Fi client devices under the most demanding conditions, thereby ensuring the delivery of higher quality products and faster time-to-market. It also allows the user to perform advanced tests that were previously difficult or impossible, Azimuth officials said.

 

Additionally, many different parameters, such as modes of operation, connection configuration, security mode and more, can be defined with the new 802.11 a/b/g/n Client Performance Test Suite. Tests may be performed in as many different functional modes as required.

 

The key focus of the new test suite is to support the rapidly proliferating segment of non-traditional client devices offering Wi-Fi, such as smart phones, game consoles, set top boxes and other multimedia devices. This support was given due to the fact that many of these devices not only support 802.11 a/b/g, but now also support the 802.11n MIMO-based standard that offers throughput in excess of 100 Mbps.

 

Nowadays, 802.11n testing is the necessity of maintaining and testing backwards compatibility, coexistence and performance of existing 802.11 a/b/g single antenna devices, which are still being developed and sold.