infoTECH Feature

May 29, 2012

ATS-Group Partners with Livingston for Drive Test Project Equipment

ATS-Group, which recently bagged a contract from a major mobile operator to execute drive tests across London, forged a partnership with Livingston, a test equipment sourcing specialist.

Livingstone will supply the hardware and software needed to implement the test drive project. ATS will execute the drive test across all of London for the analysis of base stations now being deployed to serve the national capital. The project is aimed at addressing the growing issue of wireless congestion.

This type of testing is typically executed via equipment housed in vans. The solution, developed by ATS-Group, allows the companies to perform the testing with a system that can be carried on a motorbike. As compared traditional, more cumbersome methodologies, the ATS solution has three major advantages.

First, motorbikes can make their way through the city traffic more easily than vans.

Secondly, motorbikes are more eco-friendly than vans, as they tend to consume lesser fuels for carrying out the tests. Lastly, running costs involved are expected to be markedly less.

When there is no doubt motorcycle-based drive test systems yield better value for its customers, the use of the right combination of tools can be vital for the success of the project. By partnering with Livingston, the ATS Group reportedly gained access to everything it needed in the most financially beneficial and convenient manner.

The equipment used for this project by Each of ATS-Group operatives will use a range of hardware, including a PCTEL SeeGull EX-quad high-performance scanning receiver, connected to an antenna and three Sony Ericsson (News - Alert) test handsets.

All hardware fits in the motorbike’s side and back pannier boxes.

A Samsung tablet PC is kept in the fuel tank bag just in front of the rider. Data from the handsets and scanner is fed into the tablet, which acts as the system hub, running on the Ascom (News - Alert) TEMS Investigation data acquisition software platform. An external scanner support is also included.

Having stopped after carrying out tests in one area, the engineer riding the motorbike can examine the data that has come in and quickly send it off to the operations center, without having to dismount, then move on to the next area, saving valuable time.

“The new drive test technique that ATS-Group has pioneered will have a major effect on the way this activity is undertaken,” said Nick Clarke, sales manager at Livingston. “With testing activity already underway, ATS-Group now hopes to apply this simple but effective approach to other cities in the near future. This is something that will be of particular value in and around London this summer, given the added number of people likely to be using the roads. Field operatives will have a greater degree of mobility and be able to cover a given area in a much shorter period of time.”

Last year, ATS Group announced a partnership with Silverstring, a U.K.-based specialist in storage management and data protection solutions for mid- to large-sized enterprises. The partnership was designed to let Silverstring offer its customers Galileo Performance Explorer (Galileo PE) system performance monitoring, designed to optimize capacity utilization and performance planning for AIX based servers and IBM (News - Alert) Storage systems.


Edited by Braden Becker
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