AirLink Communications Ships New CDPD Cell Wizard

Business Wire, Dec 26, 1996

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 26, 1996--AirLink Communications announced the immediate availability of its new CDPD Cell Wizard, a field diagnostic and optimization tool designed for CDPD network engineers, applications engineers, and cellular technicians.

The Cell Wizard analyzes the network, looking for anomalies that affect performance. When it finds a potential problem, it logs an exception and provides a link to a help topic that describes the situation and offers suggestions. Reported exceptions include registration failures, adjacent channel interference, channel stream congestion, and various problems with broadcast cell configuration messages.

This capability enables people with little knowledge of CDPD to quickly identify problems. For example, if an ERP delta discrepancy is reported, the help system can guide the user to perform further measurements by switching to AMPS scanner mode.

The Cell Wizard can also be used to setup and tune CDPD networks. The unit can register on the network and transmit Ping or Test frames. The channel quality data and response times are merged with the GPS coordinates and saved to ASCII files that can be read by mapping software such as MapInfo.

These can be used to benchmark CDPD coverage and to figure out problems when and where they occur. Different configurations can be quickly tested in the field using the broadcast override capability.

The Cell Wizard also performs specialized tests such as monitoring CDPD availability on a specified cell, locking onto a channel, or forcing a reference or wide area scan. It includes an AMPS scanner mode that scans a list of up to 10 AMPS channels and displays their signal strengths.

The Cell Wizard offers many real time displays, each showing some aspect of CDPD operation. The Status window shows the current channel number, cell number, received signal strength, block error rates, percent busy, and channel availability. The Channel window summarizes channel events as they happen. These include reference scans, channel hops and cell transfers.

The Adjacent Cells window shows the results of the last reference channel scan. This is the data used by the modem to compare the desirability of the candidate cells. The Cell Configurations window allows the user to step through the cell configuration database. Other windows include Protocol Analysis, MAC Status, Link Status and Throughput.

The Cell Wizard consists of Windows application software and a small communications module that contains a full duplex CDPD modem from NovAtel Wireless and an embedded GPS receiver. The list price is $9,500.

AirLink Communications Inc., based in San Jose, is a leading developer of test equipment and protocol software for wireless communications. Their CDPD product family includes the Remote Cell Monitor, the Airlink Protocol Analyzer, and the Network Emulator. In addition, they license the CDPD airlink protocols to Mobile End System manufacturers. Further information is available at http://www.airlink.com . -0-

NOTE TO EDITORS: MapInfo is a registered trademark of MapInfo Corp.

CONTACT: AirLink Communications Inc., San Jose

Ray Fasnacht, 408/261-6602

http://www.airlink.com