Rohde & Schwarz ROMES4 22.0 — Complete Guide to Drive Test Software for Mobile Network Testing

What Is R&S ROMES4?

R&S ROMES4 is the universal drive test and network analysis software platform from Rohde & Schwarz (Germany), used by mobile network operators, infrastructure vendors, regulators, and specialized network engineering firms worldwide for coverage measurement, QoS assessment, interference identification, and network optimization across all cellular technologies.

Unlike R&S NESTOR — which is designed for law enforcement and government authority use of cellular network data — ROMES4 is an operator-facing tool: it is what network engineers at MNOs (mobile network operators) use to measure, troubleshoot, and optimize the cellular networks they build and maintain. It is the telecom industry equivalent of the diagnostic tool used to verify that a network is performing as intended.

Current version: ROMES4 22.0, with continuous capability additions up to the latest 2025 release.

Who uses R&S ROMES4:

RF engineers and network optimization teams at mobile network operators (MNOs)
Network infrastructure vendors (Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei, Samsung) verifying network deployments
Independent telecom engineering and testing companies
National spectrum regulators performing independent network quality audits
Private network owners deploying and maintaining enterprise 5G
Mission-critical network operators (TETRA/P25) in public safety

Core value proposition: ROMES4 consolidates coverage measurement, QoS testing, interference analysis, base station position estimation, and AI-powered root cause analysis across all active cellular technologies into a single software platform — eliminating the need for separate tools for each technology generation.

Technology Support — All Generations in One Platform

The defining characteristic of ROMES4 is its breadth of simultaneous technology support, enabling a single drive test campaign to collect data across the full cellular environment:

Cellular technologies:

5G NR — Sub-6 GHz (FR1): all SSB subcarrier spacings and transmission cases; FR2 (mmWave) with R&S TSME44DC and TSMS53DC downconverters
5G NR RedCap (3GPP Release 17) — reduced capability IoT devices: industrial sensors, smart cameras, wearables
5G NR FrMCS — Future Railway Mobile Communication System (next-gen railway standard)
LTE (4G) — FDD and TDD, including carrier aggregation (CA), 4×4 MIMO
LTE-M (Cat-M1) — IoT variant of LTE for low-power wide-area applications
NB-IoT — Narrowband IoT; accurate coverage measurement requiring scanner rather than UE-only approach
UMTS (3G/WCDMA) — all bands
GSM (2G) — all bands, interference analysis
CDMA2000 / 1xEV-DO — North American and Asian CDMA networks
WiMAX — legacy fixed wireless
TETRA — mission-critical digital trunked radio (public safety, utilities)
P25 — North American public safety digital radio standard, Phase 1 and Phase 2

This multi-technology simultaneous coverage is central to ROMES4’s value: a single measurement campaign on a given route characterizes the complete radio environment — the RF engineer doesn’t need to return for separate passes per technology.

Core Measurement Capabilities

Drive Test and Walk Test

Drive test (vehicle-based) is the foundational workflow: a test vehicle drives a defined route through the network coverage area while ROMES4 collects measurements from connected scanners and test UEs (phones), geo-referenced by GPS. The result is a map of measured KPIs along the driven route.

Walk test is the equivalent for indoor environments and areas inaccessible to vehicles: the engineer carries a backpack system with scanner and laptop/tablet running ROMES4 through buildings, malls, transit stations, airports, campuses, and other indoor venues. ROMES4 supports walk test configurations natively.

What ROMES4 measures during drive/walk tests:

RF layer (scanner measurements):

Signal strength: RSRP, RSRQ, RSSI, SINR (LTE/5G); RXLEV, C/I (GSM); RSCP, Ec/Io (UMTS)
Serving cell and neighbor cell lists
Physical cell identity (PCI)
System information (SIB content) decoded from broadcast channels
Beam/SSB measurements for 5G NR — tracking individual beams and SSBs across PCI sets
Time of arrival (ToA) measurements for network synchronization quality
Spectrum scans (time-gated for TDD networks)

QoS layer (UE measurements):

Download/upload throughput (HTTP DL/UL)
Latency (ping, round-trip time)
Connection establishment (call setup success rate, setup time)
Call drop rate
Voice quality (MOS scores)
Handover success and failure rate
RACH (Random Access Channel) procedure success rate

ROMES Insights — AI-Powered Root Cause Analysis

ROMES Insights is ROMES4’s most significant differentiating feature vs legacy drive test tools: an automated, AI-powered analysis engine that autonomously identifies the root causes of degraded LTE and 5G performance — without requiring the engineer to manually trace through protocol logs.

The problem ROMES Insights solves: Traditional drive test analysis requires engineers to correlate measurements across multiple protocol layers — RF conditions, RRC signaling, scheduling decisions, mobility procedures — to identify why a user experienced poor throughput or a dropped call. This is skilled, time-consuming work. An experienced RF engineer might spend 30–60 minutes analyzing a single problem location.

How ROMES Insights works: ROMES Insights combines detailed trace data with TTI (Transmission Time Interval) level data to automatically cross-correlate all protocol layers simultaneously:

PDU Session information — session establishment, modification, and failure
RRC Connection Control and Mobility — handover triggers, failures, reconnection events
PDCP/RLC Configuration — data link layer configuration and performance
IP Details — application layer view of throughput and retransmissions
DRB PDCP Analysis — Data Radio Bearer performance per bearer
RACH Failures — random access failures (cause, frequency, location)
PHY PDSCH/PUSCH Analysis — physical layer downlink/uplink: MCS, resource blocks, link adaptation, throughput
RF Analysis — coverage gaps, interference sources, time of arrival

حتما بخوانید: Once Sport Analyser — Complete Guide to Video Analysis, 3D Telestration, and Live Analysis

Output: ROMES Insights generates a structured problem report identifying the specific layer and mechanism responsible for each performance issue — telling the engineer “the degradation at this location was caused by [specific root cause]” rather than leaving them to find it manually.

Impact on engineering workflow: Problem identification that previously took 30–60 minutes of expert analyst time per location can be automated across an entire drive campaign, enabling teams to process far more data and identify more problems in less time.

Network Problem Analyzer (NPA) — Batch Post-Processing

The Network Problem Analyzer is ROMES4’s post-processing engine for batch analysis of collected drive test data:

What NPA does:

Processes multiple drive test files simultaneously across large geographic areas
Identifies RF problems: coverage holes, high interference zones, pilot pollution
Identifies service problems: low throughput areas, high call drop rate zones, frequent handover failure locations
Generates problem reports and maps showing problem locations and severity
Supports latest technologies including NB-IoT and LTE-M

Interference hunting: NPA automates the interference analysis workflow that traditionally required manual examination of measurements from hundreds of sites. The NPA scans all measurement data for anomalous RF patterns indicating interference — whether from adjacent channel interference, co-channel interference, external interference sources, or equipment faults — and generates a ranked list of problem locations with the identified interference signature.

GSM interference automation: ROMES4 includes automated GSM interference identification — the NPA can identify GSM interference issues with up to 80% cost savings compared to standard manual analysis workflows.

5G NR — Deep Measurement Capabilities

ROMES4 version 22.0 and beyond includes comprehensive 5G NR support that goes well beyond basic coverage measurement:

Beam and SSB measurement: 5G NR uses beamforming — multiple directional beams per base station sector, each associated with a Synchronization Signal Block (SSB). ROMES4 maintains clear visibility of different PCIs and beam/SSB combinations across all evaluation tasks during measurement and replay. This is essential for understanding how 5G beamforming is performing in real-world deployments.

5G UE (User Equipment) support: ROMES4 supports on-device testing with 5G UE devices:

Qualcomm chipset-based UE (up to 8 devices per license)
Samsung Exynos chipset-based UE
Full Layer 1, Layer 2, and Layer 3 logging
LTE information for 5G non-standalone (NSA/EN-DC) alongside 5G NR serving cell metrics
RACH procedure details
LTE-NR EN-DC signaling
Application layer throughput and latency

5G NR Time of Arrival (ToA): ROMES4 with TSMx scanners measures the time of arrival offset between PPS pulses and received 5G NR signal sequences — enabling network synchronization quality assessment, which is critical for TDD 5G NR networks where uplink/downlink timing must be precisely coordinated.

Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS): In networks where 5G NR shares spectrum with LTE dynamically, ROMES4 correctly identifies and distinguishes the two technologies on shared frequencies — a measurement challenge that confounds simpler tools.

5G RedCap field verification: ROMES4 supports field measurement of 5G RedCap (3GPP Release 17) networks — the new IoT-tier of 5G designed for industrial sensors, surveillance cameras, and wearables. As operators begin deploying RedCap infrastructure, ROMES4 provides the field measurement capability to verify coexistence with standard 5G NR and benchmark RedCap coverage.

Private 5G Network Testing

Private 5G networks — enterprise-owned 5G deployments in factories, warehouses, ports, campuses, and other industrial sites — require specialized field testing beyond what standard consumer MNO testing covers:

ROMES4 for private 5G:

R&S ROMES4 combined with an R&S TSMx scanner and a Quectel RM500Q industry module provides a purpose-built private 5G test solution
The Quectel module mimics real industrial device behavior (such as connected robots and automated guided vehicles)
Tests supported: ping (latency), iperf3 (throughput), interactivity tests
Validates speed, latency, and reliability parameters specific to industrial automation requirements
Can run on a portable laptop or directly on the R&S TSMA6B autonomous scanner (scanner-integrated deployment)

Why private 5G testing is different: Consumer MNO networks prioritize coverage of large outdoor areas with many subscribers. Private 5G networks prioritize ultra-reliability and low latency within a defined indoor or campus area for a limited number of specialized devices. ROMES4’s private 5G testing workflow is calibrated for these different optimization objectives.

On-Device Testing — iPhones and Android UEs

Beyond scanner-based measurements, ROMES4 supports on-device testing — measuring from actual commercial smartphones rather than specialized test equipment. This captures the real user experience as seen by commercial devices, which can differ from scanner measurements due to device-specific modem behavior.

حتما بخوانید: ETAP 24 — Complete Guide for Electrical Power System Engineers (2026)

iPhone on-device testing:

ROMES probe app available on the App Store
ROMES4 controls the app and manages campaign configuration from the PC
Tests: voice calls, HTTP download/upload, ping
Manual functions: locking to specific RAT (2G/3G/4G/5G) and frequency band
Full Qualcomm chipset logging through ROMES probe: UL/DL Layer 1 and Layer 3, mobility procedure insights

Android UE support:

QualiPoc Android smartphones — R&S-instrumented commercial Android devices
Full chipset diagnostics logging (Qualcomm, Samsung Exynos)
LTE carrier aggregation (CA) support
Up to 16 test phones per license in parallel (enabling large-scale benchmark campaigns with multiple simultaneous UEs)

Parallel UE measurement efficiency: Running 8–16 phones in parallel on a single drive test route compresses the measurement campaign time significantly vs sequential testing — reducing OPEX for operators running regular benchmark campaigns.

Base Station Position Estimation

A distinctive ROMES4 capability: during a drive test, the software automatically estimates the geographic positions of base stations from the measurement data itself — without requiring a pre-existing base station database.

How it works: ROMES4 combines signal measurements with GPS position data across multiple measurement points along the drive route to triangulate the most likely position of each detected transmitter. The calculation runs in real time during the drive.

Supported technologies: GSM, WCDMA, LTE, 5G NR, CDMA2000, 1xEVDO, WiMAX, TETRA, NB-IoT

Practical uses:

Generating a base station list for newly discovered competitor network cells
Identifying interference sources by locating the transmitter
Validating that installed base stations are at their declared positions
Rapid network survey in areas without accurate BTS database coverage

Output: A list of estimated base station positions with sector azimuth, exportable for display in GIS tools or as a standalone base station map.

Mission-Critical Network Testing — TETRA and P25

ROMES4 is one of the few drive test platforms with comprehensive support for mission-critical digital trunked radio standards used by public safety, military, and utilities:

TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio):

Full TETRA coverage and QoS measurement in combination with R&S TSMx scanners
System information demodulation (TETRA broadcast channels)
Support for TETRA Direct Mode Operation (TETRA DMO)
Speech quality analysis with leading TETRA handsets (e.g., Sepura SC20)
Complete TETRA tool chain: ROMES4 scanner measurements + Network Problem Analyzer for problem detection
Compact backpack deployment: entire TETRA test system fits in a single backpack, controllable via tablet

P25 (APCO Project 25):

P25 coverage and interference testing
P25 Phase 1 and Phase 2 support
Broadcasting demodulation capabilities
Applicable for federal, state, and local public safety network verification in North America

Why TETRA/P25 matters: Fire brigades, police, emergency medical services, and military units depend on TETRA/P25 networks for communications in exactly the situations where standard cellular networks may fail or be overloaded. Maintaining verified coverage and quality in these networks is a safety-critical requirement — ROMES4 provides the specialized measurement capability these networks require.

Spectrum Scanning

ROMES4 with R&S TSMx scanners supports spectrum scanning beyond standard cellular channel measurements:

Standard spectrum scan: Measures power across a configured frequency range, identifying all active transmitters — useful for interference hunting and unknown signal identification.

Time-gated spectrum scan: A unique capability for 5G NR TDD networks: applies a time gate on uplink/downlink slots, symbols, or the guard period. This allows ROMES4 to view uplink-only or downlink-only power spectrum — isolating interference specific to UL or DL that would be masked in a full-time spectrum measurement. Critical for troubleshooting interference issues in 5G NR TDD deployments.

ROMES4 vs Competitors

Feature	R&S ROMES4	Keysight Nemo Outdoor	TEMS Investigation	Accuver XCAL
5G NR FR1	✅ Full	✅ Full	✅ Full	✅
5G NR FR2 (mmWave)	✅ (with downconverter)	✅	✅	Limited
5G NR RedCap	✅	✅	✅	Limited
TETRA native	✅ Full	✅	✅	Limited
P25	✅	✅	Limited	❌
NB-IoT/LTE-M	✅ Full	✅ Full	✅	✅
AI root cause (ROMES Insights)	✅ Unique	❌	❌	❌
iPhone on-device testing	✅ ROMES probe	Limited	❌	❌
BTS position estimation	✅ Real-time	✅	Limited	❌
Private 5G (industry module)	✅ Quectel	Limited	Limited	Limited
Time-gated spectrum scan	✅	Limited	Limited	❌
Parallel UEs per license	Up to 16	Up to 18	Varies	Varies
Post-processing (NPA)	✅ Integrated	✅ Nemo Analyze	✅ ACTIX	✅
Scanner brand lock-in	R&S TSMx	Multi-vendor	Multi-vendor	Multi-vendor

ROMES4 vs Keysight Nemo Outdoor: Both are industry-standard drive test platforms covering the full technology range. Nemo Outdoor supports more than 300 UE terminals from multiple vendors, giving it broader hardware compatibility. ROMES4’s unique advantage is ROMES Insights — the AI-powered automated root cause analysis that Nemo does not have. ROMES4 also has tighter integration with R&S TSMx scanners (which are widely considered the most accurate in the market). Nemo is often preferred for its vendor-neutral hardware approach; ROMES4 is preferred where R&S scanner hardware is already in use and where ROMES Insights saves engineering analysis time.

حتما بخوانید: FLIR Thermal Studio Suite — Complete Guide for Thermographers and Inspection Professionals (2026)

ROMES4 vs TEMS Investigation: TEMS Investigation (Ookla/Spirent) is the other major competitor. TEMS is particularly strong in application-layer testing and has historically been dominant in European operator markets. ROMES4 competes on depth of 5G NR analysis and ROMES Insights. TEMS iPhone support is more limited than ROMES4’s native ROMES probe integration.

Typical Deployment Configurations

Standard drive test vehicle: Laptop running ROMES4 + R&S TSMA6B scanner (mounted externally on vehicle roof or in trunk) + 1–4 test phones + GPS antenna. Connects via LAN inside the vehicle. Provides coverage, QoS, and UE measurements simultaneously.

Walk test backpack: Portable backpack carrying R&S TSMA6B autonomous scanner (battery-powered) + laptop or tablet running ROMES4 + test phones. Full coverage and QoS measurement capability in indoor environments.

Autonomous scanning (TSMA6B standalone): R&S ROMES4 can run directly on the TSMA6B scanner hardware itself — no separate laptop required. The scanner drives itself through a pre-configured measurement campaign and stores data for post-processing when the campaign is complete. Used for unattended measurement campaigns or simplified vehicle installations.

Private 5G compact test: ROMES4 on a laptop + TSMA6B scanner + Quectel RM500Q industry module. The entire system can be carried in a compact case or backpack for industrial site testing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between ROMES4 and R&S NESTOR? ROMES4 is the drive test and network optimization platform for mobile network operators and infrastructure engineers — it measures commercial network quality, coverage, QoS, and performance. NESTOR is the cellular network analysis platform for law enforcement agencies, intelligence services, and regulatory authorities — it is configured for passive observation and forensic/regulatory use cases. Both use R&S TSMx scanner hardware but serve fundamentally different use cases and user communities.

Does ROMES4 support 5G FR2 (mmWave)? Yes, with appropriate downconverter hardware. The R&S TSME44DC and R&S TSMS53DC downconverters extend R&S TSMx scanner coverage to mmWave frequencies (26 GHz, 28 GHz, 39 GHz, and beyond). ROMES4 processes the downconverted measurements using the same workflow as sub-6 GHz measurements.

Can ROMES4 be used for private 5G campus/factory testing? Yes. ROMES4 combined with the Quectel RM500Q industry module provides a solution specifically designed for private 5G testing in industrial environments. The Quectel module mimics real device performance in ways that consumer test phones cannot.

Does ROMES4 work with scanners from other vendors? ROMES4 is designed for use with R&S TSMx scanners. The tight integration between ROMES4 and the TSMx scanner family enables scanner-specific features like time of arrival measurements, time-gated spectrum scanning, and real-time base station position estimation. Competitor scanners are not generally supported.

What is ROMES Insights and which ROMES4 license includes it? ROMES Insights is the AI-powered automated root cause analysis module that autonomously identifies why LTE and 5G performance is degraded by correlating data across all protocol layers. It is an optional add-on to the ROMES4 platform, licensed separately from the base drive test functionality. Contact Rohde & Schwarz or their distributors for current licensing details.

How many test phones can ROMES4 run simultaneously? The base ROMES4 platform supports up to 16 test mobile phones per license running in parallel. Running multiple phones simultaneously enables more statistically robust measurements and more efficient campaign execution compared to running a single phone.

Summary

R&S ROMES4 22.0 is the universal drive test and network engineering platform for mobile network operators and telecom infrastructure teams. Its simultaneous multi-technology measurement across 5G NR (including RedCap and FrMCS), LTE, NB-IoT, LTE-M, UMTS, GSM, CDMA2000, TETRA, and P25; ROMES Insights AI-powered automated root cause analysis; native iPhone on-device testing via ROMES probe; real-time base station position estimation; private 5G testing with industry-grade UE modules; time-gated spectrum scanning for TDD interference analysis; and integrated Network Problem Analyzer for batch post-processing make it one of the two dominant drive test platforms globally — competing directly with Keysight Nemo Outdoor for the drive test software market. The ROMES Insights capability is the clearest functional differentiator from all current competitors, automating the expert analysis work that previously required senior RF engineers to perform manually.

For licensing assistance, contact our team via Telegram: t.me/DoCrackMe