The Acreo National Testbed, ANT, is a meeting place for a wide spectrum of regional, national and international institutions and companies working with research and commercialisation of products and services for broadband networks.
The focus of the testbed is the end user. This includes analysis of user traffic patterns and behaviour; advanced high-capacity services often based on an IPTV platform; and studies and evaluation of equipment close to the end user - access and home networks.
ANT is an umbrella for different kinds of testbed activities
ANT contains many interconnected activities that can be roughly divided into the following areas:
Behaviour, Broadband access, Fixed-mobile convergence, and Connectivity. Click here to see where in Sweden we have testbed activities.
Common for all testbed activities is that they are performed in real networks using real end users – we call them test pilots! It is our firm belief that testing services and equipment in a real environment is superior compared to the lab tests…
The deployed network equipment is often state-of-the-art commercial equipment supplied by our partners, but it can also be a pre-commercial from one of our projects.
Equipment testing
The testbed is open to companies that wish to test their equipment in a sophisticated environment with real end users. We have a friendly population of test pilots that have agreed to tolerate network downtime, so much tougher tests can be performed than what is the case in commercial production networks. Furthermore, Acreo’s engineers have vast experience in Layer 1, 2 and 3 equipment from various vendors – including interop testing.
Living Lab
In ANT we strive to work in accordance with the concept of Living Labs. It means that the end user is continually involved in the development process – all the way from mapping the end users needs & requirements over prototype development to beta testing.
The testbed is open to collaboration concerning development or testing of services or equipment with close end user involvement. This could be through either commercial assignments or joint projects. Read more about our test pilot population here or behaviour studies here. Acreo is part of the Stockholm Living Lab network.
Funding
The prime sponsors for the research projects and activities in the testbed are VINNOVA and EU (through FP7 and the Structural Funds). Industrial financing of both small and large projects and/or assignments is another important source of funding.
Contact
To get more information and requests about equipment testing or joint projects, please send us a mail and we will get back to you.