A novel approach to reproduce GSM field tests in a controlled laboratory environment

To date, a GSM mobile station (MS) only had to be tested for conformity against the ETSI 300 607-1. This involved more than 300 tests for each frequency band, but field testing was not included. With the deregulation of the European mobile communications market, mandatory conformance testing has been abolished, thus enabling the introduction of a new certification scheme by the GSM Certification Forum (GCF), which makes field testing mandatory. This paper presents a new method to implement verifiable and repeatable GSM field tests in a controlled environment using a novel test system. A comparison of 10 GSM MS under 10 different traffic conditions was performed and statistically evaluated.