Spirent TestCenter supports the highest performing and most realistic wireless local area network (WLAN) multi-client emulation for direct functionality and performance testing of Access Points (APs) and end-to-end testing of WLAN ecosystems that include WLAN access controllers, and gateways. Spirent TestCenter C2 WLAN Appliance in a compact and portable, 2U appliance form factor combines Spirent’s industry-leading IEEE 802.11ax WLAN interface cards with Spirent IEEE 802.3bz BASE-T 100Mbps/1Gbps/2.5Gbps/5Gbps/10Gbps Ethernet card on a copper interface. Users can emulate a large number of realistic 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax WLAN clients to connect with an AP via a cabled conductive or over-the-air (OTA) link. The appliance has an internal hardware clock-based cross NICs timing aimed for an accurate latency measurement. Basic WLAN control plane and data plane features along with the advanced RFC style network traffic and throughput performance test cases are supported over the WLAN network involving the emulated clients and the APs under test.
The WLAN interfaces installed in the highly integrated C2 Appliance consist of multiple IEEE 802.11ax radios, providing maximum user configurability and flexibility to emulate various IEEE 802.11ax clients and other legacy 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac clients on either 2.4GHz or 5GHz band. The newly designed 802.11ax radio interface supports those exciting features such as MU-MIMO, OFDMA, longer symbol duration, BSS color, etc. introduced in 802.11ax standard. A single WLAN radio supports 802.11ax clients with different spatial stream configurations up to 8 spatial streams for the best realistic client emulation scenarios in either conductive or OTA mode. Designed for testing WLAN network infrastructure devices, the intended DUTs include the latest 802.11ax carrier or enterprise thin APs with controllers, consumer grade 802.11ax APs, and integrated broadband WLAN gateway with 802.11ax support. Spirent TestCenter WLAN solutions offer the best in class traffic generation and analysis for testing functionality, performance, and scalability.