Anritsu has introduced the MU150110A multi-rate/multi-channel plug-in module unit for its MP1590B Network Performance Tester. The module creates a single instrument 10 G transport test solution with the MP1590B mainframe and provides customers with a means to accurately evaluate the performance of SDH/SONET, OTN and PDH/DSn equipment, from 1.5 Mbps to 11.1 Gbps, as well as 10 GbE interfaces during development and manufacturing.
With this plug-in, the MP1590B becomes a replacement for multiple instruments that had previously been required to support SDH/SONET, OTN and PDH/DSn, as well as 10 GbE.
For SDH/SONET equipment, the MP1590B can simultaneously measure all higher order (HO) and lower order (LO) of VT1.5/VC11 and error/alarm, BER, automatic protection switch (APS), and delay time measurements can be done for the 5376 channels simultaneously. Eliminating the need to conduct separate measurements for each channel is said to reduce test time and improve measurement efficiency. For PDH or DSn equipment it can perform function tests using multiplexer/demultiplexer (MUX/DEMUX) measurement, error insertion or alarm addition.
For OTN measurement, the MP1590B is equipped with Poisson error insertion and variable optical output power functions, so it can efficiently evaluate forward error correction (FEC) used with OTN equipment. For 10 GE the MP1590B provides the physical coding sub-layer (PCS) measurement and link fault signalling measurement.
The single instrument solution is claimed to reduce the cost of testing. Additionally, a built-in 10 G optical interface (XFP) eliminates the need for dedicated optical interfaces when measuring 10 G performances, thereby lowering set-up costs by 15% compared to conventional 10 G test configurations.