Spirent lands at China’s Daxing International to assure critical communications

Daxing International, Beijing’s new airport, has engaged Spirent Communications to test and assure the security, reliability and high availability of information systems deployed across the airport premises.

Beijing Daxing International is one of the world’s biggest airports, spanning 700,000m², and it is expected to support 45 million passengers a year by 2021, growing to 72 million by 2025. Officially opened at the end of September, the airport’s mission is to create an unrivalled technology experience for passengers and airport personnel. It has its own 5G base station and cutting-edge facial recognition technology, and requires information systems and sub-networks to maintain resiliency and performance.

As well as being home to the world’s largest single-structure terminal, the new airport is said to offer an unprecedented mix of new network and communications technologies. Assuring its information systems and networks maintain optimal performance involved significant test design, with very low tolerance to error execution and analysis, along with an acute understanding of complex network and information environments.

Spirent’s professional services team executed an extensive four-month plan through the summer of 2019 as the airport prepared to welcome its first passengers. Work included field testing and analysis of the airport’s networks and datacentre, traveller Wi-Fi, network security and the other key supporting systems.

To augment its field testing and analysis, Spirent’s professional services team employed several systems from the company’s portfolio.