As more players in the industry address open access,
the need for testing devices might get even greater.

The yellow heads rolling down city streets might draw a few strange looks from passers-by. But the substance that Metrico Wireless puts inside the heads can lead to even stickier circumstances.

Take, for example, when Metrico’s founder and president, Dimitrios Topaltzas, was transferring the substance from Germany to the United States. Needless to say, the fluid raised the curiosity of customs officials.

Metrico uses yellow “dummy” heads to evaluate radio wave performance.

Fortunately, they didn’t need to worry. The benign substance is a part of Metrico’s handset testing business. It’s used inside yellow “dummy” heads to simulate the consistency of what’s inside the human head, so technicians can more accurately test how radio waves will react. Rather than measuring bit data rates, “we’re trying to capture more of the user experience data in an objective way,” says Des Owens, general manager at Metrico, based in Frederick, Md. Metrico generates reports for handset makers or their partners spelling out how well the voice and if appropriate, data, services work for end-users.

OPEN ACCESS LINK
Metrico’s technology could be even more relevant in these days of open access. Owens likens it to how vehicles on open freeways must meet basic operational criteria. If vehicles didn’t meet some level of expectation, a lot more of them would be veering off roads. The same goes for devices – if they don’t perform well, they can be a detriment to other network users and ultimately affect openness.

Metrico doesn’t claim Verizon Wireless as a customer and the carrier hasn’t endorsed Metrico’s solution, but it is conceivable that developers could use its technology to help get devices ready for the carrier’s “any device, any app” network-only service. Metrico is technology-agnostic, so it works with CDMA, GSM, UMA, WiMAX and others.

First and foremost, Verizon says its Open Development Device specifications are designed to protect its network and existing customers. Beyond that, the specs are not as stringent as what Verizon uses in-house for its own branded devices, according to Chief Technical Officer Tony Melone. The Open Development specs are based predominantly on industry standards.

Verizon’s goal for device developers is to make it a 4-week process from end-to-end, provided the radio module already has gone through the FCC type-acceptance process. Verizon’s testing process includes about one week for RF parametric testing, two weeks for signaling conformance and feature validation and about one week for report generation, feedback and validation for pass or fail.

Of course, devices must conform to essential services related to E911, local number portability, wireless priority services and other regulations. Best practices are suggested but not required. For example, developers are encouraged to conduct interoperability and field operability tests. On its Website, Verizon says the test process won’t make any determination as to call quality or other functionality.

It’s that call quality that Metrico is most concerned with. Typically, handset manufacturers will turn to Metrico at the beginning of the acceptance period. “In some ways, we act as a gateway to prevent them from spending valuable resources … because [devices] don’t reach muster,” Owens says. In certain cases, handset manufacturers might be updating a model that’s already in the market and use Metrico to benchmark it.

AT&T & OPENNESS
Although the CDMA camp worldwide does have a form of SIM known as R-UIM, for removable user identity module, SIM cards are not part of U.S. CDMA carriers’ offerings. SIM cards, however, are an integral part of the GSM world, and it’s the use of GSM that makes AT&T Mobility so open to begin with, according to AT&T. “We have a far smaller challenge in the area of openness than other carriers do precisely because the technology is so open to begin with,” says AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel.

AT&T makes it easy for pretty much anyone to bring a GSM device onto its network, he says. It’s not a widely known or advertised fact, but as long as the device is unlocked and works on the U.S. frequency, it doesn’t need to be tested before a consumer activates it with an AT&T SIM and service plan. Of course, AT&T can’t guarantee how such a device will perform, but it is possible to do, as long as the end-user knows to ask.

Siegel says AT&T’s openness extends to the application world as well. It was the first major U.S. carrier to create a developer program, called devCentral, back in 2002. On a section of its Website, the carrier spells out the process for application developers who want to get their apps certified to run on the AT&T network. “We think it’s the best of its kind in the industry,” Siegel says.

Metrico is a small vendor compared to the behemoth carriers Verizon and AT&T. But it works with some big-name partners, including AT&T, T-Mobile, Samsung and Research In Motion (RIM). Not surprisingly, Metrico must conform to a lot of non-disclosure agreements. Some partners have even visited its facilities to make sure the security is in place to prevent information about their pre-commercial products from being leaked. As for those technicians driving around with the yellow heads? That job has perks. After all, they can use the high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes. Of course, they’re just joking about that.