In an interview with TimesTech, at the India Mobile Congress 2023, VIAVI, a leading T&M solutions provider, showcased groundbreaking technologies, including the NITRO Wireless portfolio and the OneAdvisor 800 platform. Mr. Monojit Samaddar, Country Director, discusses VIAVI’s commitment to the Open RAN ecosystem, 5G security, and the surging demand for T&M equipment across diverse sectors in the Indian telecom market.
Read the full interview here:
TimesTech: Key T&M solutions VIAVI showcased at IMC 2023?
Mr. Monojit: At India Mobile Congress, VIAVI demonstrated its industry-leading portfolio of end-to-end network test and optimization solutions across 5G, Fiber and Cloud.
Apart from our wide range of test and validation solutions, in particular, we have showcased NITRO Wireless, a portfolio of solutions enabling all participants in the ecosystem – equipment manufacturers, service providers, semiconductor companies, software developers and system integrators – to accelerate technology development by validating performance at each stage in intelligent, intuitive and automated ways.
In addition, VIAVI showcased its all-in-one cell site installation and maintenance test platform OneAdvisor 800. VIAVI OneAdvisor 800 Wireless equips field technicians and contractors with a compact instrument to install, activate and maintain all elements of the RAN, including RF and fiber. OneAdvisor 800 addresses current deployment scenarios – from millimetre wave networks, to mitigating uplink interference, to network timing and synchronization, and X-haul testing – with automated test processes that help close workforce skill gaps.
VIAVI also demonstrated fiber test instruments and complete range of essential instruments, systems and software, required to address today’s fastest growing technologies and functional needs, providing end-to-end support for the construction, activation, monitoring and maintenance of fiber optic services.
TimesTech: Please elaborate on your recently announced NITRO Wireless solution?
Mr. Monojit: NITRO Wireless brings together proven performance and interoperability test platforms used throughout the industry for 3GPP and O-RAN with cloud, intelligence, automation, and digital twin technology enabled by the Network Integrated Test, Real-Time Analytics and Optimization (NITRO) platform. As networks become more complex and layered, a focus on measuring and assuring experience from the user perspective – by emulating usage scenarios modelled on real network data – generates the essential intelligence to simplify the delivery of new technology. NITRO Wireless use cases include:
• RAN Intelligence – The NITRO Wireless TeraVM RIC Test trains the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) based on data from real network scenarios, the App Validation Engine (AVE) acts as an App “IQ test” to validate if the proposed changes improve RAN efficiency, and Geolocation exposes geolocated data to r/xApps including 24/7 insights on spatial distribution and mobility dynamics of subscribers.
• Private Network Intelligence – To support the high reliability and QoS requirements of Private Networks, NITRO Wireless offers signal analysis, timing and synchronization verification, antenna alignment, fiber certification, and coverage and performance testing from design to operation.
• Network Security – 5G RAN, 5G Core, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), Next Generation Firewalls, VPN and cloud security solutions all need to be compliant against the latest specifications, while ensuring network performance remains uncompromised. NITRO Wireless Open RAN Security Solution provides test coverage that includes 3GPP SCAS compliance, DoS and fuzzing attack, O-Cloud resource exhaustion, protocol validation, port scanning and open frontal security test.
• Digital Twin – Digital Twins can reduce business risk in multiple ways. Test software updates and introduce new services in a safe environment to pre-empt failures when deployed in the live network. NITRO Wireless Digital Twins combine tools such as RAN and Core emulators, assurance solutions, realistic traffic scenarios, and cyber threats to mirror an operator’s network in the lab, allowing network changes and challenges to be planned and implemented with results analysed before action is taken on the live network.
TimesTech: What are your views of the Indian telecom Test & Measurement market? Which sectors are creating demand for T&M equipment?
Mr. Monojit: The 5G ecosystem in India is advancing rapidly. Communication service providers (CSPs) are strengthening their 5G capabilities that includes; small cells, fiber and towers to support high speeds and low latency services. Network cloudification, Open RAN, hyperscalers and the edge are accelerating high-speed network test across all phases of the network lifecycle.
5G and advancements in 6G, satellite communications, AI, cyber security, data centres, chip design, IoT, fiber deployments, telecom manufacturing, R&D and segments like; BharatNet project, Smart Cities, Digital India initiatives, utilities, aerospace & defence, automotive and NEMs are creating demand for T&M equipment’s and driving the growth of test and validation industry.
TimesTech: How is VIAVI enabling the Open RAN Ecosystem?
Mr. Monojit: VIAVI has established a multi-faceted commitment to the success of Open RAN development and deployment. VIAVI provides capability for testing individual O-RU, O-DU, O-CU and near-RT RIC network elements, as well as combined elements and full end-to-end open network validation.
VIAVI has embraced the challenges of MV-IOT by supporting and collaborating with partners on the development of O-RAN compliant test tools extending from the lab to the field. This includes component level wrap around testing, vendor pairing evaluations to validate the function, performance, robustness and resilience of specific combinations, and protocol compliance testing for open interfaces.
As one of the earliest contributors to Open RAN industry initiatives, VIAVI has established the leading E2E Open RAN portfolio encompassing robust RAN and core test solutions, accelerating next-gen Open RAN networks through active participation in cross functional forums across the telecom landscape.
TimesTech: In 5G, security is an important element. How does VIAVI help communication service providers?
Mr. Monojit: Security in 5G is a key concern. With huge architecture changes, the threat surface has increased dramatically opening up more entry points for malicious players. 5G networks are far more digitized than previous generations – virtualization, cloud hosting and new services like network slicing make the networks less centralized and more software-led than ever before. This has security implications, so testing needs to be a priority to identify potential vulnerabilities. As more and more CSPs choose to host their 5G core networks on the public cloud, having adequate security is crucial. VIAVI’s TeraVM offers a virtualized solution enabling the flexibility to run anywhere – lab, datacentre and the cloud, with consistent performance coverage, ensuring highly optimized networks and services can be delivered with minimal risk. This powerful tool can be used for automation and orchestration, cybersecurity threat and malware penetration, secure access firewall/VPN Testing, wireless core interface testing and wireless RAN and Core emulation.
