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“Beyond testing tools, manufacturers
need to understand that the adoption of

3GPP standards means much more than
just selecting a specific set of protocols

and leveraging economies of scale.”

STANDARDS COMPLIANCE -

AN END TO UNPROVEN CLAIMS

By Bego Blanco Jauregi, Director of Quality Assurance and

Institutional Assessment, University of the Basque Country

During the past few years, the mission-critical communications But again, there is something of the chicken-and-egg situation
community has made a huge effort to develop new broadband here. Unless there is a validated mission critical services (MCS) test
solutions based on open standards. In this context, 3GPP provides platform, certification programs cannot be launched. Meanwhile
a key framework developing technical specifications to ensure customers are forced to accept equipment supplied with unproven
the evolution of mission-critical technology. However, using open claims of standards compliance.
standards is just not enough to break down traditional entry Currently, both the GCF (Global Certification Forum) and CTIA/
barriers and truly enable an open multi-vendor market. This is PTCRB (the most prominent certification bodies) have MCS
where conformance testing mechanisms and certification programs certification related Work Items waiting for test platforms
come into play. 3GPP has developed a comprehensive process availability. Only the availability of validated Test Platforms will
to enable proper verification of conformance, from test cases trigger the activation of those Work Items in
definition in TSG RAN Working Group 5 (RAN5), to translation to the certification bodies which is expected to
neutral TTCN-3 testing language by TF160.
happen in the next six months.
Beyond testing tools, manufacturers need to understand that the
adoption of 3GPP standards means much more than just selecting The MCS TaaSting project has been working
a specific set of protocols and leveraging economies of scale. intensively for the past two years to push all
There needs to be a commitment to compliance in order to foster the certification program building stages and
interoperability in multi-vendor deployments, which must be make the world’s first validated MCS test
incorporated in the whole product development cycle as soon as platform available.
possible. Furthermore, the testing-as-a-service mechanism proposed has
been conceived to fit the needs of the niche MCS community in
Users must understand the added value of conformance testing
and certification, which can be summarized as “ensuring you can terms of cost efficiency and flexibility.
just switch to another vendor client, server, or component and it As a result, MCS TaaSting allows the industry to validate the 3GPP
should work”. Only by including standard compliance requirements standards-compliance of their solutions and will encourage users
and verification mechanisms in their tendering processes will users and operators to trust that products and services are built on
free themselves from proprietary interfaces and long and costly standards and will therefore be interoperable.
integration processes.
For more information visit www.mcstaasting.com
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