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Guide
March 2008
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The content of this manual is provided for information only, is subject to change without
notice, and should not be construed as a commitment by Actix. Actix assumes no
responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that appear in this documentation.
Copyright Actix 2008. All rights reserved. All trademarks are hereby acknowledged.
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Contents
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6 INDEX.................................................................................................. 61
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Feature testing
Service validation
Network bench-marking
Competitive analysis
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The platform for Actix Solutions, Analyzer, can load network performance data from many
different sources:
These data sources could include field-test equipment and switch call traces, and could be
from a one-off test, or part of a planned series of samples to build up an image of overall
network performance.
Once the data is loaded, a variety of analysis tools and displays provide a clear view of
network performance for engineers, technicians or operations management staff.
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Help is available on how to use MyActix when you log on. There is an RSS feed available to
keep up to date with new resources being posted to the portal.
It is also possible to access the Actix Support Service by other means such as email and
telephone, but these methods are not preferred. It is more efficient and effective to submit
a case via www.myactix.com to provide all necessary information to recreate the
Customers case which can then be investigated.
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This guide is concerned with how to use these tools, on the principle that once you
understand how these tools work, the use of the other engineering processes will appear
very straightforward.
Checking the box at the bottom of the screen also lets you bypass this screen and go
straight to your selected engineering process. If in future you want to display this screen,
from the File menu select Start New Engineering Process.
Your selected engineering process will not work correctly
until you have configured your solution.
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On the toolbar, select Import, then Import From New Template to open the
Import dialog.
Select the appropriate export data file from your planning tool and click Open to
display the Custom Import Wizard.
The Import Settings page of the Custom Import Wizard is now displayed:
Check the appropriate Delimiter that separates the data from the file into
different columns.
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For example, under Delimiters, check the Tab box. Under General Settings, for
Ignore header rows enter 1. For Array (list) Separator enter ;. If your file
has more than one header or uses a different array list separator, set these
options accordingly.
If you choose the wrong delimiter, you will see the effect in the Data Preview
window at the bottom of the dialog.
5
In most cases, the default information under General Settings and Coordinate
Information will apply. If your file has more than one header or uses a different
array list separator (the character used to separate the array values under the
'Neighbors' column in the example for step 1), adjust these settings as necessary.
Click Next.
The Column Settings page of the Custom Import Wizard is now displayed. This
allows you to associate a network parameter with a column of data in the text file.
You must select a field type for this field, but you
cannot set a default value.
Required fields
Other fields
Open up the Site node. Click on the adjacent field under Column and select the
parameter name from your site database that corresponds to the Site_Name
parameter. Repeat for each of the fields in the Site node.
Open the Cell node. Click in the Column field next to Sector_ID. Select the
parameter name from your site database that corresponds to the Sector_ID
parameter.
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You can enter a default value that takes effect if the actual
value is unknown. For example, all Beamwidths could be
set to 65 degrees.
9
Repeat for each of the fields in the Cell node. A description of each of these
parameters and their use is given in the appropriate technology table in the Cell
site parameters chapter .
10 Click Finish when all the columns have been assigned. The new cell information will
be added at the bottom of the existing list in the Network Element editor.
When the cellrefs file is updated, you should use the
template you have created on the new file so that you do
not have to repeat work you have already done, including
the column-by-column parameter assignment.
16 After closing the Network Explorer, view a new map by selecting View, Display
New Map.
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17 If cell icons do not appear on the map, right click on the map and select Zoom, Go
to Layer, <tech>_Site to zoom the map to the appropriate location.
18 Set the cells to be labeled by an appropriate parameter for the technology (for
example, SC for UMTS).
From the Tools menu, select Preferences to open the Preferences dialog:
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Click on File Location to select the text file containing network element data. This
file must be in the Actix 'cellrefs' format. The information from this cellrefs file
takes effect from the next time a new workspace is created.
Note that you can set up an automatic cellrefs import if
your network data is liable to change frequently (see the
online help for details).
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The diagram above looks at a one-second bin. The speed of travel during logging will affect
how many log files you see in a certain area.
Distance binning combines data into
bins corresponding to the distance
traveled by the test mobile.
This mode is commonly used for drive-test analyses when viewing on a map to ensure plot
points are evenly spaced.
Message binning - If the number of messages to be averaged is set to 1, each message
is placed into its own bin with the net result of no averaging of the data. Note that
message binning should be usually only set to 1.
Location binning is like overlaying a spatial grid on top of the data with a user-definable
granularity. This can be used when examining several drive files crossing over the same
geographic area. This method is often used for superstreams (see the online help for more
information).
Drive Routes
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Under the heading Binning, select the appropriate Binning Mode. A typical setting
for viewing drive test data would be to select Time binning, with Time (ms) set to
1000.
Drag a data attribute from the Attribute Explorer into the map window.
Create, delete
or export layers
In the Layers box, click Add to open the Open Layer dialog.
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MapInfo layers are named according to the geographic location of the data (for
example, the abbreviated US state name and/or county name), and by the type of
data contained in the file. Here are some of the common abbreviations used for
MapInfo data types:
Suffix
Layer Type
Y1
RtHwy010_Top
Y2
RtHwy010_Bot
X1
IntShld010
X2
IntShld1040
Pc
Cultural Points
Pn
Natural Points
Pm
Municipal Points
Railroads
Highways
Streets
Wr
Water (rivers)
Wb
Lm
Landmarks
Cb
City Boundary
Mc
Cy
County
The top of the layer list represents the uppermost layer in this map window.
7
Click Up and Down to move 'examplemap' to the bottom and 'Annotations' to the
top.
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Pan the map viewing area by right-clicking in the map area, then choosing Zoom,
Go to Layer and selecting the new map layer.
10 Use the Zoom and Pan controls to arrange the map as required. To zoom in to an
area, click Zoom In, then click and drag a rectangle around the area of interest.
From the map window, click the Layers button to open the Layer Control dialog.
To use
Do this
Data Field
Formatted Field
Show
To use
Do this
Min Zoom
Max Zoom
Max # of labels
Label Style
Position
Label Style
From the map window, click the Layers button to open the Layer Control dialog.
Check Display within Zoom range and enter '0' for Min Zoom and '10' for Max
Zoom.
From the map window, click the Layers button to open the Layer Control dialog.
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Attribute
CDMA
PN_1stBestEcIo
GSM
ServBCCH
iDEN
Channel
IS_136
FACCH_CurChannel
UMTS
Uu_ActiveSet_SC
Check that the Disable box is empty, and click OK, then Yes.
Zoom In on data points near a cell site, and use Select to pick a data point.
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From the map window, click on Cell Sites to open the Sites/Cell Properties dialog.
Set the Cell Size to an attribute shared by all related cell sites, such as
Layer_type (recommended if available from your cellrefs file) or MCC, and click OK
to display the new layer in the Legend panel on the left.
Expand the new layer to show one item in the range, called 'Unspecified'.
Right-click on this item and choose Selected range's style to open the Style
chooser dialog.
Set the new font size as required and click OK. The cell site sectors will now
change size to reflect your selection.
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The arrangement of loaded help files and data display windows is called the current
workspace. You can save and reuse workspaces as necessary.
You may find it useful to create one or more workspaces to
act as templates for future work sessions. Save these to
your desktop, so you can double-click them to start your
solution with your preferred layouts.
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From the main toolbar, click the Open Logfile button to display the Open dialog.
An attribute
Click on the symbols to open out and explore the data in your logfile. See how your data
relates to the structure shown above.
The only objects that you actually need to recognize are filenames, data streams and data
attributes.
In the example above, the file 'MyFile1' contains a data stream called 'Qualcomm MDM
1900' (the number is the data stream number within the file, starting from zero).
The 'CDMA' group contains the 'Pilot Sets' set, which contains the 'SearcherMaxEnergy'
data attribute.
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The logical tree-view layout of the Attribute Explorer allows you to drill down and identify
all logged data. Once you have located the appropriate data attribute, you can open it in a
data windowfor example, a map, chart, table or spreadsheetto examine the data in
detail. You can examine data streams using the Message Browser tool.
Searching for an attribute
You may find it easier to locate attributes using the Find Attribute command, which lets
you enter all or part of the attribute's name or help description in a new Attribute Search
dialog.
Select Tools, Find Attribute (or use
the hotkey Ctrl + Shift + F) to add a
search panel is added to the Attribute
Explorer tree view pane.
Enter search criteria about the required attributes into this panel.
Find What: Enter some text which is part of the required attribute name.
Stream: Select which stream of data should be searched. <All Streams> is set
by default.
Settings:
Whole Word: Check this to search only for attributes where the search text
exactly matches the whole attribute name. Otherwise, search for attributes
where the search text is contained within the attribute name.
Case Sensitive: Check this to search only for attributes where the case of
the search string exactly matches the case of the attribute.
Direction: When down is selected, only search for attributes further down in the
attribute tree from the currently selected attribute. When up is selected, only
search for attributes further up in the attribute tree from the currently selected
attribute.
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Find Next: Based on the current search criteria, find the next matching attribute.
This attribute is highlighted in the All tab at the bottom of the Attribute Explorer.
Find All: Based on the current search criteria, find all matching attributes in the
tree-view. The matching attributes are listed in the Search Results tab at the
bottom of the Attribute Explorer.
Done: The search for attribute panel is closed. Search results remain visible in the
Search Results tab.
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From the Analysis menu, select an application pack (in this example, 'CDMA
Distant Server Analysis').
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The top pane shows a tree-view of the network structure against various statistics
produced by the application pack.
3
Use the top pane as necessary to narrow down the data in your selection.
All reports appropriate to your selection are displayed under the Suggested tab. If
you want to use another report, look under the All tab to view all reports available
within the current application pack.
A description of the reports contained within each application pack is also provided
in this window.
Double-click on a report icon to open the report window. This will report on all data
selected in the upper tree-view panel.
As required, use the buttons at the bottom of the window to Save the report as a
web-compatible HTML file set, Print the report to your printer or open the report
in Excel using Show Excel Report.
Distance_Input
EcIo_Threshold_Input
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From the Attribute Explorer, right-click on a data stream and select Display
Message Browser.
The Message Browser combines an event panel (sequentially listing call events) with a
panel of Layer 3 messaging, allowing you to pinpoint the root causes of problems.
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From the Attribute Explorer, right-click on the data stream and select Protocol
Stack Browser.
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Select one of the display methods to opens the appropriate data display window.
Use the pop-up menu to display the data attribute ('EcIo_1stBest' in this example)
in a map window on a new layer.
If there are no other attribute layers on this map, the new attribute layer will be
beneath the lowest site or cell layer. See the chapter Configuring your solution for
more information on map layers.
2
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In the Attribute Explorer, open up the 'Event Data' set and drag an event (in this
example the 'WeakPilotWarning' event) onto the map, which should then look
similar to this:
Adding events (for example 'CallDropped') to the mapped data can help you see
where problems are occurring.
6
To hide a data series, in the legend pane, click in the check box beside the series
name.
To find out how to add background geographical and
network information to map windows, see the chapter
Configuring your solution.
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Click on the Step buttons to move forwards and backwards by one message at a time.
Note that several clicks may be required before any change is visible on the Map,
depending on the binning settings.
Click on the Play buttons to move at a selectable multiple of real-time speed through the
data (if Play by Time is selected see below). In this case, some messages may be
dropped as necessary to allow the data to be highlighted at the set speed.
The Select Options button allows you to set the replay mode:
Mode
Play
Step
Play by Time
Play by
Message
Play by Bin
While examining data on a map, you can also view data attributes for the same data point
by using Forms (also called StateForms).
1
From the View menu, select Forms and select an appropriate StateForm (or, from
the Attribute Explorer, right-click on a stream name, select Display Form and
then the form name).
The Form window now displays a variety of attributes based on the data point you
selected. Here is an example:
You can synchronize all views in other open data windows by clicking on the
timeline in Navigator-type StateForms like this.
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Other StateForms provide information for the currently selected point in the drive
test:
If you have scanner data in your logfile, start another Form window.
Right-click on the form and select Open File, then select a form (.axw) file for a
scanner.
Right-click on the form and select Stream Selector, then the scanner stream.
See the online help for details on how to create your own forms.
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From the Attribute Explorer window, use the pop-up menu to display a data
attribute (in this example, 'EcIo_1stBest') in a chart window.
You can display more than one attribute on the same chart.
2
Select a second attribute that would make a useful comparison (in this example,
the attribute 'ForwardFER') and drag it onto the existing chart.
You can also zoom into selected areas of the chart by defining a frame for the
zoom.
3
On the chart, click the upper left corner of the zooming rectangle, and drag down
to the lower right extent of the rectangle.
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Note that the zoom only operates in the X-axis, not in the
Y-axis.
5
Now return the chart its original state by dragging a box anywhere, but this time
starting from the bottom.
Use the right mouse button to pan and scroll around the chart window.
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Although you can scroll in the X-axis for all attributes on the chart, you can only
pan in the Y-axis for the last attribute to be displayed on the chart.
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From the Attribute Explorer, right-click on a data attribute (in this example,
'DownLink Measurements > EcIo_1stBest') and select Display on Table.
This opens the Table window:
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Ensure that you have loaded the two files that you want to synchronize into a
superstream.
From the View menu, select Superstream to open the Superstreaming dialog.
This dialog shows all currently available data streams.
Change the superstream name from the default to something more meaningful.
Check the box of each data stream that you want to combine to form a
superstream. You can also use the All or None buttons to change the box settings
of every listed data stream.
Click the Settings button. This expands the dialog to show the Merge Method
options.
To superstream data from the reverse link and the forward link, click the
Correlated Parameters option. This lets you select attributes from each stream
that correspond to one another.
From the attribute picker button on the right, select a suitable attribute, for
example 'Cell_PN_Primary'.
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Filter queries
Binned queries
Histogram queries
Statistical queries
Crosstab queries
Event queries
From the Attribute Explorer, right-click on a data stream and select Filter, then
Create a New Filter.
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Click on the right-arrow of the attribute picker and select , for example, CDMA >
DownLink Measurements > ForwardFER.
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Poor Ec/No
High Ec/No
CPICH_EcNo_in_ActiveSet[0] > -8 dB
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From the Workbook menu, select Open Workbook and select an appropriate
Excel template.
Click Open.
Select the data source that you want to view in the workbook report.
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You can proceed to adapt the workbook, use other Excel tools on the data, and so
on.
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Beneath each device in the Attribute Explorer, you can see the attributes and queries that
are part of that device. The structure of the devices and their attributes, queries, and
filters are defined by the template that was used to create the repository and cannot be
changed after the repository has been created. Sometimes each device might have a
different list of attributes and queries and sometimes some or all of the devices might have
the same lists.
When you right-click an attribute or binned query in the Attribute Explorer, you get options
to display it on the Map and other binned data viewing components and to see its
definition in the Attribute Help system.
When you right-click a crosstab or event query in the Attribute Explorer, you have the
option to open the Repository Statistics Explorer, which provides useful features for
exploring the summary views that the crosstab queries provide.
Typically an engineering process module that uses Repository Manager will retrieve
crosstab data from the repository and display it in a table or chart embedded on the task
page.
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Select the Template on which you want to base the repository and enter a Name
and Description.
Click Create & Open, if you want to open the new repository after it has
been created.
Click Create, if you do not want to open the new repository immediately
after it is created.
Select the repository you want to open and then click OK.
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Locate the repository in the Open Repositories folder in the Attribute Explorer.
Right-click the repository and from the shortcut menu, choose Load Data.
This opens the Load Data dialog. This has features that make it easy to select
individual files to load, and also to select multiple files based on their location and
file names.
Use the Add Files button to select individual log files to load. When you select a
file, it is automatically added to the list of files in the center of the Load Data
dialog box.
Use the Add Folders button to select folders that contain log files to load.
Selecting a folder automatically selects all of the files in that folder and all of its
subfolders and adds them to the list of files in the Load Data dialog box.
You can remove files from the list by selecting them individually or in groups
(using Shift-click and Ctrl-click) and then clicking Remove.
You can also remove files from the list by entering an expression into the Filter
dialog box and then clicking Apply. This removes from the list all of the files that
do not meet the filter expression.
The expression should use a combination of text and wildcard characters to specify
the name patterns of the log files that you want to include. You can include
multiple patterns using the semicolon (;) character. The following table provides
details of the valid wildcard characters.
Wildcard
*
?
Description
Matches zero or more characters.
Matches a single character.
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Selects
All files that have a .log filename extension and all log files whose
names contain the text "Friday" and that have an .sd5 filename
extension.
*08-??-2004*.dat
Only files that have a .dat filename extension and whose names
contain the characters "08-" followed by any two characters and then
followed by the characters "-2004". In practice this could be used to
select files whose names contain any date in August 2004 specified in
the American short date style.
Clicking the Apply button applies the expression to the files listed in the box
above. Note that clearing the expression and clicking Apply again does not cancel
any filtering that was applied earlier.
8
When the list reflects the files you want to load, click OK to start the loading
process.
Notes:
Repository Manager will attempt to load all of the files in the list. If any of them
cannot be loaded, because, for example, they are not valid log files, Repository
Manager will simply move on to the next file.
Repository Manager does not reload files that have already been loaded into the
repository.
When the file loading process has finished, Repository Manager displays a list
showing each file and the results of the loading process. A result of OK means that
the log file was successfully processed and does not necessarily mean that any of
the data was actually loaded into the repository. For example, it is possible for a
log file to be shown as OK when in fact none of its data was loaded into the
repository because it did not meet any of the loading criteria defined for the
devices or if it did, the log file did not actually contain any of the attributes defined
for those devices nor any data that matched the queries. See Repository Template
Wizard: Define Devices in the online help for more information.
Locate the repository in the Open Repositories folder in the Attribute Explorer.
Right-click the repository and from the shortcut menu, choose Display Loaded
Files.
Locate the repository in the Open Repositories folder in the Attribute Explorer.
Right-click the repository and from the shortcut menu, choose Close Repository.
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Select the repository you want to delete and then click Delete.
This irreversibly deletes the database from disk. It does not delete any session files
associated with the database.
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Open the Template Manager, select the template you want to change, and then
click Edit. This takes you straight to the Combine or Separate Data? page.
Open the Template Manager, select the template you want to delete, and then
click Delete.
Note that you cannot delete templates that are supplied by
Actix, or that are within a package.
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Actix Workspace
Name
Purpose
Site Name
CDMA_Site SiteName
Site Number
CDMA_Site SiteID
Latitude
CDMA_Site SiteLatitude
Longitude
CDMA_Site
SiteLongitude
Sector Number
CDMA_Cell Sector ID
Can 1,2,3 etc. or a
combination of site
numbers
Azimuth
CDMA_Cell Azimuth
Beamwidth
CDMA_Cell Beamwidth
Base Station
Power
CDMA_Cell EIRP
PN Offset
CDMA_Cell PN
MCC
CDMA_Cell MCC
SID
CDMA_Cell SID
System Identity
NID
CDMA_Cell NID
Network Identity
BID
CDMA_Cell BID
Broadcast Identity
Layer type
Layer_type
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Parameter
Workspace Name
Purpose
Site Name
GSM_Site_SiteName
Site Number
GSM_Site ID
Latitude
GSM_Site Latitude
Longitude
GSM_Site Longitude
Sector Number
GSM_Cell Sector ID
Can be 1,2,3, etc, or a
combination of site
numbers
Azimuth
GSM_Cell Azimuth
Beamwidth
GSM_Cell Beamwith
Base Station
Power
GSM_Cell EIRP
BCCH
GSM_Cell BCCH
MNC
GSM_Cell MNC
MCC
GSM_Cell MCC
LAC
GSM_Cell LAC
CI
GSM_Cell CI
Cell ID value
BSIC
GSM_Cell BSIC
Layer type
Layer_type
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Parameter
Workspace Name
Purpose
Site Name
IDEN_Site_SiteName
Site Number
IDEN_SiteID
Latitude
IDEN_SiteLatitude
Longitude
IDEN_SiteLongitude
Sector Number
Azimuth
IDEN_Cell Azimuth
Beamwidth
IDEN_Cell Beamwidth
Base Station
Power
IDEN_Cell EIRP
CCCH
IDEN_Cell CCCH
Color Codes
IDEN_Cell Color_Codes
DCCH
IDEN_Cell DCCH
DVCC
IDEN_Cell DVCC
TCH_List
IDEN_Cell TCH_List
MCC
IDEN_Cell MCC
CI
IDEN_Cell CI
Cell Identity
Layer type
Layer_type
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Workspace Name
Purpose
Site Name
SiteName
Site Number
SiteID
Latitude
Latitude
Longitude
Longitude
Sector
Number
Sector_ID
Azimuth
Azimuth
Beamwidth
Beamwidth
EIRP
EIRP
SC
SC
MCC
MCC
MNC
MNC
LAC
LAC
CI
CI
Neighbor List
WCDMANeighborList
Layer Type
LayerType
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Index 61
6 Index
A
Analysis Manager, 45
Annotations, 20
applications, 5
Attribute Explorer, 53
attribute help, 8
attributes, 26
right-clicking on, 34
searching for, 27
Binned queries, 45
binning methods, 18
cellrefs, 12
Contents tab, online help, 7
context help, 8
Create a New Filter, 45
Create Repository, 51
Crosstab queries, 45
data attributes, 26
data streams, 26
Delete Repository, 55
Display Message Browser, 32
Display on Table, 42
Display on Workbook, 42
distance binning, 18
engineering process, 11
Excel templates, 48
generating reports, 48
geographical data, 19
help, context, 8
Histogram queries, 45
Layer 3 messaging, 32
Layer Control dialog, 19
lines to cells, 22
location binning, 18
Replay feature, 36
reports, 48
Repository Manager, 50
Repository Template Wizard, 55
reverse and forward link data integration, 44
right-clicking on attributes, 34
Index 62
synchronized data, 43
tables, using, 42
Template Manager, 55
time-based binning, 18
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Index 63
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Index 64
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