An
InterOp Lab is a
third-party lab where a company may test its
equipment
against that of another company. A
test suite which is maintained by
the
lab is performed to sniff out any
interoperability issues between two
pieces of equipment.
A lab will typically have equipment donated by its "member" companies
(members pay some annual fee to the lab to be so-designated) and kept in
the actual lab. Another member may now schedule a testing period and send
an engineer with the appropriate equipment to the lab. There will
(hopefully) be many different devices in the lab against which to test.
The engineer selects the equipment against which his will be tested,
passes the word along to the lab
technicians, and pending the absence of interoperability issues,
sits back and surfs the web all day. The testing, of
course, is actually
done by the lab's technicians in order to insure complete impartiality.
The benefits of membership to an InterOp Lab are:
There aren't too many InterOp Labs around. One of the finest in the world
is located at the
University of New Hampshire in the USA.
No kidding.
see
UNH
InterOperability Lab.