How to Detect 5G Service Issues Proactively

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VisionWorks Service Assurance Platform
+ VisionWorks Service Assurance Platform
VisionWorks Service Assurance Platform
+ VisionWorks Service Assurance Platform

Test Services Before Users Notice

Operators must assure the performance of 5G slices, SD-WAN services, IP mesh connectivity, and core network changes as networks become virtualized, cloud-based, and too dynamic for manual troubleshooting. Passive assurance, which collects data from network functions once traffic is flowing, identifies severe customer-impacting problems but leaves gaps during turn-up, monitoring, and troubleshooting. It cannot validate a service before customers use it, check links with little or no traffic, discern minor performance fluctuations, or pinpoint where along an end-to-end path a problem originates. Operators need to find and isolate degradation before customers notice and before service-level agreement (SLA) penalties apply.

The workflow starts by mapping the end-to-end service path, such as user premises, radio access, the user plane function (UPF), transport, and the data network, and placing test points at key segments. At turn-up, teams generate known synthetic traffic to establish a baseline for throughput, latency, jitter, and packet loss. During operation, continuous tests compare results against that baseline regardless of subscriber traffic levels. When degradation appears, for example throughput dropping from 300 Mbps to 200 Mbps on a fixed wireless access service, engineers repeat tests between successive points to isolate the faulty segment. Changes such as evolved packet core (EPC) updates must be validated before production cutover, and active results must be correlated with passive data to assess customer impact.

Proactive 5G Service Assurance Solution

Keysight Active Assurance solutions, including VisionWorks virtual test agents (VTAs) and test platforms, emulate devices, users, and network functions to insert realistic synthetic traffic across the end-to-end network. Test agents deployed at strategic points perform end-to-end and segment testing of access, backhaul, core, and data center networks, managed by a central controller with analytics that deliver actionable results. At turn-up, active tests benchmark services without customer traffic. During operation, continuous testing detects minor fluctuations and isolates degraded segments, such as a faulty UPF. For change management, test agents emulate user devices and the RAN to validate EPC changes before production cutover. Cloud-native with open interfaces, Keysight solutions integrate with automation platforms and legacy systems and combine active and passive assurance to automate turn-up, monitoring, and troubleshooting. Customers have turned up high-performance services more than 10x faster.
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