Development of the GSS8000 simulator's CPU card was based on that already used in the variant B GSS7700 / 7730 / 7790 and GSS7800 / 7900 simulator models, i.e. the simulator will have "ETH" ports on the rear panel. Initially Spirent needed to maintain two versions of firmware to support new features and/or bug fixes across the two simulator series. Soon afterwards an upgrade procedure was developed in order to move the GSS7xxx series simulators on to the same firmware version as that used by the GSS8000 and by doing this Spirent were able to consolidate future updates into a single branch of firmware. It is intended therefore that only the v2.xx firmware branch will be taken forwards from now on.
Thus, the primary benefit of v2.xx firmware for GSS7xxx is to ensure you can take benefit from any firmware bug fixes and new features that are compatible with the GSS7xxx simulator series.
At the time of writing, there are no new GPS features of interest to GSS7700 / 7730 / 7790 users, but for GSS7800 users the Galileo E1 CBOC is only available with v2.xx fimware.
Customers must contact Spirent Applications Support to show their interest in taking the upgrade and have confirmed that they are eligible to do so.