CT Labs, a division of Empirix since its acquisition in January, last week launched an ultra high-density, or UHD, facility for the independent evaluation of voice-over-IP equipment and services.

The new test environment, claimed by Empirix to be the first UHD facility for VoIP, is located in Rocklin, Calif., and will provide equipment-makers and service providers a place to evaluate VoIP at carrier-grade levels by scaling up to 100,000 endpoints. It will test both TDM and IP equipment and services and support SIP, H.323, MGCP, MEGACO and other next-gen network protocols. Services will include functionality, interoperability, conformance, regression, performance and scalability testing.

CT Labs has been testing convergent communications gear and services since its inception in 1998. Chris Bajorek, director of CT Labs, said the new facility is a logical extension of its existing work and meets the new wave of VoIP requirements.

“Now that we are part of Empirix, we have the backing we need to go after much larger scale testing,” Bajorek said.

Empirix, a leading supplier of VoIP test equipment, provides much of the test equipment in the new facility, but not all. CT Labs will continue to provide a multi-vendor environment.

“Even though we are a part of Empirix, there is a strong dividing line between Empirix corporate and CT Labs staff,” Bajorek said. “It's not just a physical separation but also a separation in terms of the information flow between our groups.”

That sort of separation is necessary for providing equipment-makers and service providers with confidential performance reports. CT Labs also provides public testing and allows clients to use its performance data and other reports in their marketing materials.

The facility targets VoIP/TDM equipment manufacturers and service providers specifically, looking for validation on equipment performance in “real world” network environments.

Other validation labs for VoIP equipment exist. Miercom, in Cranbury, N.J., does 60% of its business with VoIP vendors, but less than half of that on equipment destined for carrier networks. Miercom also doesn't see great demand for UHD in its market.

“Empirix wanted to create something that did not exist before, an independent venue for vendors, or even end users, requiring very high loads of simulated traffic,” said Ed Mier, president of Miercom. Miercom uses Empirix test gear, and Mier said he doesn't view CT Labs as competition.

The Tolly Group also launched its “Tolly Verified” program in May 2003 for independent testing. Telcordia Technologies also provides testing and validation services.

However, Bajorek said, it's all a matter of scale. Next-generation equipment earmarked for carriers, which CT Labs tests, is engineered for high-density call volumes, but the vendors themselves typically only test a small fraction of their potential.

“The problem with that is many issues don't come up until you get to the 70%, 80% or 95% level,” Bajorek said. “And it's challenging to come up with a test environment that can validate call connectivity and speech quality at the same time.” That, he said, is what sets CT Labs apart from the others.

One vendor already engaged in testing is session border controller provider Acme Packet. Jim Hourihan, vice president of marketing and product management, said in a statement that equipment scalability and performance under real-world peak call loads is of major importance to his customers. “This new testing capability also fills a true gap in the lab testing options that have been available to companies like our own,” he said.

Empirix test equipment in the CT Labs will include:

• Hammer NXT TDM and IP Load Test, an expandable TDM and IP telephony test platform
• Hammer FX TDM and IP Feature Test, built specifically for testing next-gen network applications

TDM NETWORKS

• Hammer NXT TDM Load Test, a blade-based architecture that can generate more than 100,000 simultaneous calls using a mix of TDM and VoIP signaling with real media
• Hammer FX TDM Feature Test, can listen to and understand dynamic prompts and includes the high-capacity Voice Quality Analysis tools

IP NETWORKS

• Hammer NXT IP Load Test, used to verify multiple next-gen applications such as Toll By-pass, Class 5 and enhanced services.