Mobile field testing and its general procedure

Field Testing or IOT(Inter-operability test) as the name suggests is a process where the product is tested in the environment or  in the conditions it will be used the most , Almost every product that you see in the market today is field tested ( the name of the process will vary but the product is tested in its working environment before it is sold ).

Similarly mobile phones have to be field tested as well before they can be launched. Mobile communication is basically a flow of messages between MS(Mobile station or Mobile Phone) and  the Network ,the message  flow and the protocols or the set of rules that they follow to send and receive this messages has to be verified in live mobile network and this is Mobile field testing (FT).

 Ideally FT has to be conducted in every country and on every mobile phone operator present in that country , For an e.g.  let’s say  Apple wants to launch a phone in particular country , then in that case they have to perform testing on all the network operators in that country , why?  Because Mobile communication Technologies(GSM(2G) /UMTS(3G)) are implemented differently by every network provider , The architecture of the technology will be the same but the operating frequency and how the  network infrastructure is established will vary form network provider to another and that is why ideally the phone has to be tested on all the available networks in that country. 

Generally testing is conducted in two stages when in stationary and in mobility or when you are moving around,  the mobility part is more of a crucial part of the testing because a mobile phone has to work properly when a person is moving  around otherwise what’s the point .

In stationary as the name suggest all the test cases or scenarios can be performed from one location and the focus of the testing is on something that will use the radio or the network and relevant protocols , for e.g. call audio quality , sending SMS and MMS , data connectivity are just some of the test cases  that are generally executed

Mobility test is usually the second phase, second because it is more of a hectic phase of a testing, Imagine sitting in a car or a van with your laptop with some other equipment, moving around testing ,Focus of the testing is majorly on handovers, to know how the device handles it and the various scenarios that you can think of  for example You do not want the call to drop moving form one location to another, similarly if you are a browsing or downloading  .

This type of testing is performed usually in the final stages of the device launch, chip-sets are tested in simulated network first, and when the hardware and the software of the device start to become stable after repetitive testing-and fixing ,they come in for FT.