3rd Generation Mobile Reference Test System to Enable TTCN-3 Tool Assurance (STF 343)

ETSI's TTCN-3 has become an important testing technology that 3GPP RAN5 has decided to adopt from LTE/SAE (Rel-8) onwards. For successful application of this technology it is necessary to have a set of TTCN-3 tools of proven quality and which meet the requirements of 3.rd generation mobile testing. The importance of TTCN-3 tool consistency and quality is already a major issue for ETSI MCC TF160. However within the scope of their work, they will only be able to exercise TTCN-3 tools which are fully integrated with the entire test system including system simulator. This will significantly limit the choice and number of TTCN-3 tools that can be checked with this approach. In contrast, this STF will develop solutions that will enable the validation and testing of any TTCN-3 tool. The approach will also be relevant and directly extendable to other areas beyond the explicit requirements of 3GPP RAN5. This specialists task force (STF) proposes to explicitly develop the mechanisms and testware necessary to enable the validation of any TTCN-3 tool using a back-to-back interoperability testing approach that would be suitable for deployment within a Plugtest event. Therefore also a back-to-back mirror test suite will be developed and a test system architecture will be proposed.