Easy does it >BY CHRIS BUCHOLTZ, Intelligence & Software Editor

"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Henry David Thoreau, Walden

"I feel the need, the need for speed!" Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, "Top Gun"

While the sources of those two quotes are polar opposites in terms of intellectual content, together they sum up the growing wireless industry's requirements for the test and measurement vendors at the Wireless '97 show.

As with the wireline world, ease of use and performance are increasing in importance as new competitive carriers enter the market and thin the herd of skilled network technicians. In the immediate future, carriers will be forced to rely on less sophisticated technicians to carry measurement operations, and the number of technicians available will shrink, meaning that the need for productivity will reach an all-time high.

"Budgets have never been massive for test and measurement operations," said Neal Buren, product manager for Hewlett-Packard's Spectrum monitoring systems. "On top of that, the industry is going through a period where there is a lack of trained folks to do the measurements. But end users [carry over] expectations from the wireline industry, and you have to meet those expectations or you'll lose your customers."

Even for the remaining "gurus" among technical staffs, this trend toward simpler and faster devices will pay dividends.

"It's all about throughput, isn't it?" added Robert Buxton, product marketing manager for Tektronix. "Whatever skill level is present, the whole idea is to make the information simple and easy to approach. That will speed up the process of testing, and with 26.7 million users out there, there just isn't time to linger on the average test procedure anymore.

The new technician-friendly tools that vendors unveiled at Wireless '97 spanned the full range of testing tasks. Tektronix debuted a new digital radio tester to diagnose and repair telephones supporting the GSM digital standard-a device that will help keep consumers' phones up and running and allow carriers to better isolate the source of reception problems.

"There's a need for network operators to provide screening of phones for repair and to do it very quickly," said Buxton. "The most important part of this is to screen out good phones. We've found that from 30% to 60% of the phones sent in for service are actually fine, and you don't want to waste time performing a full series of diagnostics on phones that aren't malfunctioning.

The new CTS 55 digital radio tester breaks the diagnosis into steps to eliminate unnecessary procedures. A 30-second go/no go test verifies that the phone needs attention. Should the phone fail this step, then the device runs a two-minute series of automated tests to narrow down problems before a manual test begins.

The process of examining network coverage also received a more friendly face. The Grayson Electronics Division of Allen Telecom Group introduced two upgraded versions of its Surveyor test platform, as well as Illuminator, a tool for identifying and isolating faults in code division multiple access systems before they fail, and Analyzer, a PC-based post-processing tool for enhanced examination of the data collected by its two sister applications. The Illuminator features a touch-screen interface that allows less experienced technicians to perform time-consuming drive tests.

"The engineer configures the tool to suit the carrier's system requirements," said Terry Garner, president of Grayson Electronics. While the technician performs the drive test, the Illuminator automatically logs and notes exceptions in system performance. "The technician then executes engineer-defined fault isolation and repair procedures," said Garner.

Drive testing was also one component of HP's announcements. The company is entering the drive system market with the HP E7450A system, a unit that picks up where standard phone testing ends.

"Phones do a good job of showing where problems occur, but not necessarily why," said Buren. "Instead of measuring the network using the network's own parameters-like a phone test does-this unit measures the network, looking at things like power levels, individual pilot channels and other data that's crucial to making technical improvements to the network."

The system software has a two-level interface to simplify operation, with the basic user level providing a limited set of controls and a pre-specified number of test operations. The standard user level affords access to all system controls for specialized testing.

TTC also demonstrated a simplified interface in its new T-Berd 2207 wireless network test instrument, which uses a large touch-screen display to both control and present test results. The device is the result of a partnership with Racal Instruments, and TTC demonstrated the 2207's interoperability with Racal's 6113 base transceiver station at the show.

Anritsu Wiltron took a similar approach to evaluating time division multiple access transmitter and receiver patterns in its MT8801BB radio communication analyzer. The company added an IS-136 option to the device, which uses a high-speed measurement algorithm to quickly generate test results. The device can be configured so that measurements can be taken with the push of a button.