Wimax standards and Security The Wimax

WiMAX Plugfest Testing

The main idea of group tests or Plugfest is to provide vendors the opportunity to address potential problems at an early stage. The Plugfest is a preview of full interoperability testing before formal certification testing. It allows vendors to get an early look at how well their equipment interoperates. The Plugfest is a weeklong event carried out at a WiMAX Forum-contracted testing site. The participating vendors must first agree on a set of RF/PHY characteristics within a given certification profile, and a minimum of three vendors must be available to conduct interoperability testing. The WiMAX Forum certification working group (CWG) has indicated that the Plugfest events will be planned about every six months. In some cases, there may be additional Plugfest

events planned to prepare vendors for future certification releases. We now describe the test architectures for the following Plugfests:

• 
  3rd Plugfest for fixed WiMAX (held in March 2006) [7]
  
• 
  5th Plugfest for mobile WiMAX (held in September 2006) [12]
  

1. 
   3rd Plugfest Test Architecture
   

There are four system test configurations defined in the 3rd Plugfest. Asystem under test (SUT) is defined as a network consisting of one BS and 1–3 SSs and, when needed, some monitoring devices (such as PA, VSA). The following specific configurations are used [7]:

• 
  SUT1: 1 BS + monitoring devices
  
• 
  SUT2: 1 BS + 1 SS + monitoring devices
  
• 
  SUT3: 1 BS + 2 SSs (from different vendors and at least one of them from a different vendor to that of the BS) + monitoring devices
  
• 
  SUT4: 1 BS + 3 SSs (from different vendors and at least two of them from different vendors to that of the BS) + monitoring devices
  

The devices in each SUT will be interconnected by wired means (using, for example, attenuators, couplers, etc.). The certification profiles tested in 3rd Plugfest consisted of:

• 
  3.5 GHz, 3.5 MHz, TDD
  
• 
  3.5 GHz, 3.5 MHz, FDD
  

1.