In-Home Wi-Fi Performance Testing
Overview
Cartesian’s Wi-Fi Service supports CPE product development, vendor selection, performance improvements, comparative performance, and post-deployment enhancements, with associated consultancy services. The performance and behaviour of Wi-Fi CPE are comprehensively validated, enabling product release with confidence.
Our unique, independent, and impartial service is performed in our dedicated testing facilities in the UK, comprising both chamber-based and real-world testing environments, to ensure a complete assessment of Wi-Fi CPE. Our clients have been benefitting from our Wi-Fi test service since its inception in 2012.
Supporting World-Class Wi-Fi Technology and Solutions
In today’s connected world, consumers need reliable and high-performance Wi-Fi to support their studying, working, and leisure activities. They are using ever greater numbers of Wi-Fi devices, consume increasing amounts of broadband and Wi-Fi bandwidth, want to stream 4K quality video content to multiple screens while roaming throughout the home and out into their gardens, and they want all of this 24 x 7!
A key factor in customer satisfaction is the reliability and high performance of their Wi-Fi service. Poor Wi-Fi performance is extremely costly: lost revenue due to customer churn, the cost of call centre support, truck rolls and swapped equipment and worse, bad press, reputational damage, and loss of future business.
To support these customer demands, Wi-Fi technology continues to develop. The past few years have seen dramatic changes to the capabilities of Wi-Fi routers and smart devices, and the introduction of intelligent Wi-Fi features and new technologies such as multi-node / mesh Wi-Fi solutions and Wi-Fi 6.
For these reasons, Cartesian has developed a suite of empirical Wi-Fi performance and behavioural tests that are performed in a domestic environment, complemented by RF certification and compliance tests. Collectively, these Wi-Fi test services provide our customers with independent, standardised, and repeatable Wi-Fi test results. This allows all industry stakeholders, including operators, service providers, product manufacturers and semi-conductor companies, to maximize the quality of experience (QoE), reduce OPEX, and avert lost revenues.
Testing allows you to pre-empt and fix issues before you take your offer to market and can lead to improving the customer experience. By keeping your customers happy, they’ll remain loyal to you.
How We Check In-Home Wi-Fi CPE Performance
We offer chamber-based and empirical (real-world) testing environments. Chamber tests include Antenna Characterisation, EMC, EIRP (Wi-Fi Power Level) and DFS (Dynamic Frequency Selection) testing. For our empirical tests, Cartesian operates two dedicated Wi-Fi Test Houses to ensure clean and controlled environments and representative scenarios. We also provide a hardware design review and recommendations to help you make product choices before you commit the investment.
Wi-Fi CPE performance can be affected by numerous factors such as the size and construction of the building, the number and layout of the rooms, and the number and type of the customer’s client devices, as well as the components of the CPE itself. By using both chamber-based and empirical testing, our Wi-Fi CPE Performance Testing Service helps ensure your Wi-Fi CPE works the way you expect it to within the customer environment.
Example Tests:
Empirical Performance Tests
- Single Client ‘Clean’
- Multi-client AirTime Fairness
- Multi-Client Loading
- Congestion / ‘Apartment Scenario’
- Comparative Performance (regression testing or to support marketing claims)
- ACS/DCS, SON, Single SSID vs separate SSIDs
- Bandsteering & Client Steering
- Homespot / Community Wi-Fi & Cabinet Wi-Fi
- Hotspot / Out-of-Home Wi-Fi
- Powerline, Multi-Node & Mesh
- Wi-Fi 4, Wi-Fi 5, and Wi-Fi 6
- Gaming
Hardware Performance Testing
- Antenna Characterization
- Simulated Performance
- Hardware Design Review
As the complexity of in-home Wi-Fi environments continues to grow with the advent of multi-node / mesh Wi-Fi solutions, intelligent Wi-Fi features and new generations of Wi-Fi equipment such as 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6), Cartesian’s Wi-Fi performance testing services also continues to evolve and expand. All these features can be tested during our Wi-Fi test cycles.
The results of our Wi-Fi testing give service providers the information they need to provide their customers with choices and set expectations about the performance of their Wi-Fi solutions and those of their competitors.
Case Studies
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