Development of an automation process for ADSL interoperability and reliability tests

There are issues of interoperability with digital subscriber line (DSL) modems and digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM). We performed interoperability and reliability tests for asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) system. We followed DSL forum defined standard TR-048 for ADSL interoperability tests [DSL Forum Technical Report, 2002]. This is an intensive and laborious test process. We developed an automation process using TCL script. We also used Perl scripting for formatting data. We used Lucent's DSLAM, Spirent Communication's Line simulators and Traffic generators. For testing we used several vendor's ADSL modems. Our automation process saved time and thus testing cost. The automation process can be modified as needed and thus differs from the existing commercial test suite. Commercial test suite is hardware specific automation but we can modify our scripts any time depending on the hardware. Thus this automation can be used as a general platform and can be modified as needed.