New measurement solution from Agilent Technologies

Agilent Technologies Inc. has announced its accurate and repeatable solution available for measuring 10 Gb/s SONET/SDH and G.709 OTN jitter.

Enhancements to the Agilent OmniBER OTN communications performance analyzer ensure a receiver-only fixed accuracy error of less than 15 mUI at 10 Gb/s. This high accuracy and repeatability is said to reduce jitter measurement uncertainty by more than 50 percent, giving component suppliers and network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) much greater assurance of design conformance to the 100 mUI industry standard.

Along with the hardware enhancements to the OmniBER OTN, a new International Telecommunication Union (ITU) O.172 Appendix VII-based calibration procedure, developed by Agilent, provides a guaranteed accuracy specification.

Until recently, the existing ITU recommendation for jitter-measurement equipment performance (Rec. O.172) did not include a procedure for verifying receiver accuracy. Working with leading NEMs, component suppliers and other test equipment suppliers, Agilent proposed such a procedure to the ITU: the O.172 Appendix VII, "Method for Verification of Measurement Result Accuracy."

"Since its inception, Recommendation O.172 has specified what measurement accuracy jitter instruments must meet without detailing how to verify this performance," said David Taylor, Agilent R&D project manager. "The new O.172 appendix fills this gap and provides the basis for a receiver-only performance calibration and specification, enhancing absolute accuracy and box-to-box consistency."