Testbed helps optimize home Wi-Fi devices

STACK-MID is a new testbed designed for communications service providers (CSPs) to test and optimize home-focused Wi-Fi devices and solutions. A subset of octoScope’s fully-featured STACK-MAX testbed, STACK-MID supports testing of all features and standards that are vital to home Wi-Fi devices, including the latest Broadband Forum TR-398 Issue 2 test cases for home router performance.

“Our CSP customers tell us that a significant proportion of service calls from their customers are Wi-Fi related, as home Wi-Fi solutions become ever-more sophisticated,” said Fanny Mlinarsky, founder of octoScope, and Senior Vice President of Wi-Fi Products at Spirent. “CSPs are looking for testing solutions to assess and improve performance of Wi-Fi routers, gateways and networks, especially in the face of new Wi-Fi technologies and network topologies such as mesh being increasingly adopted in the home.”

octoScope’s STACK-MID enables CSPs to test the latest Wi-Fi solutions for the home user, including the most recent technologies such as Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E, MU-MIMO and OFDMA. When combined with octoScope’s Tracker field-to-lab replay solution, the testbed can also be used in the optimization of mesh networks, while features such as roaming, access point (AP) steering, band steering, and load balancing are also easy to test and optimize. Realistic deployment scenarios can be recorded in the field and replicated inside the testbed.

“With STACK-MID, service providers can be confident that devices under test will perform as they should when deployed in the field,” said Mlinarsky.

Stackable and configurable, octoBox personal testbeds are completely isolated from external interference and can be used at an engineer’s office or lab bench. Each octoBox testbed is controlled by a dedicated Node.js web server accessible via a browser UI for manual control, or via REST API for test automation. The server provides the time base for the testbed and controls the built-in instruments, DUT configuration, traffic, and test flow. Test results are saved in a MongoDB database, enabling multiple teams to easily collaborate by sharing the test automation scripts and test results.

octoScope, 305 Foster Street, Unit 104, Littleton, MA 01460, 978.222.3114, fax 1.866.401.5382, info@octoScope.com, www.octoscope.com/