NetTest Adds VoIP Capabilities to Tester Line
-- Test & Measurement World, 6/17/2004
NetTest's MasterQuest line of network testers now measures voice quality for
voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) networks. Recent advances in networking
protocols have brought VoIP to the forefront of communications. Service
providers and enterprises are now deploying VoIP in place of circuit-switched
networks.
The MasterQuest is a chassis-based tester that uses "blades" to interface to networks. Nonintrusive probes let engineers monitor VoIP calls from end to end across a network. Software analyzes voice streams for quality and pinpoints location of service breakdown. The system monitors call quality across SS7 networks, too. That lets engineers monitor quality across an entire network where one caller uses a VoIP phone while the other caller uses a standard POTS analog phone. Besides analyzing voice quality, the MasterQuest decodes and analyzes the underlying prococols, including session initiation protocol (SIP) and Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4).
