Network Analyzers Have Gone Wireless Too
As the installation of wireless network analyzer technologies expanded, so did the need for new communications test equipment to service the needs of each one. The changing network landscape mandated the creation and use of line performance monitors, bit error rate testers (BERT), baud rate counters, and interface control lead monitors for reliable network operation.
As speeds increased, problems increased. Bipolar violations, cyclic redundancy check (CRC) errors, framing misalignments, and about 50 other T1/E1 faults were added to the network manager's list of problems. New wireless network testing equipment was needed to detect all of these as well because such factors diminished network performance or stopped its operation completely.
With corporations and government organizations becoming heavily dependent on their networks, losing network performance or losing the whole network became events that were too expensive to overlook and thus justified the purchase of monitoring and wireless network testing equipment to keep the network up and running smoothly.
In this world of ever-shifting sand that gives us great leaps forward as well as staggering failures, it is good to know that some things never change. Despite differences in compatibility, capability, cost, and throughput, all of the data networking architectures and products in use 10 years ago had one thing in common. Regardless of the source(s) of the equipment, or the number of ports on the front end processor, or the speed of the modems, or the magnitude of the monthly phone bills, there would always come a time when data could simply not be sent or received. Why? Because something eminently simple but fatal went wrong. A wire was broken, a piece of equipment was turned off, someone at a central office accidentally switched a circuit or changed its conditioning, power failed, a terminal broke down, or something electronic began emitting vast quantities of smoke. To restore the communications channel operation, someone had to visit the failure site and fix something. Networks are less homogeneous and more complex today than they were then. Wide area network reliability is better and the cost of high-speed connectivity is steadily diminishing. On average, network installation and maintenance personnel are less well trained and are under much more time pressure to do their jobs than 10 years ago. But at the same time, network monitoring and control systems have improved significantly, making the task of watching the day-to-day operation of a network simpler.
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