Actix Getting Started Guide

Getting Started
Actix A Solutions
September 2004

Getting Started: Actix A Solutions September 2004 Edition for Actix A Solutions Version 4.2 Copyright © Actix Limited 1996-2004. All rights reserved. All trademarks are hereby acknowledged. Actix and the Actix logo are the trademarks of Actix Limited. Similar restrictions to use of our company and product names may apply elsewhere. 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. SentinelLM is a trademark of SafeNet, Inc. Licenturion is a registered trademark of Licenturion GmbH. See www.licenturion.com for details of Licenturion® Product Activation. MapInfo and MapInfo MapX are registered trademarks of MapInfo Corporation. Actix also uses open-source components from MIT Software. See The MIT License.txt for details. This product includes software developed by the Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org/). Microsoft, Excel and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

Contents

1 INTRODUCING ACTIX A SOLUTIONS ...............7
About this guide..........................................................................................7 Getting help ................................................................................................8 Use the online help.............................................................................. 8 The context-sensitive attribute reference help...................................................... 9 Visit the Actix Support web site: http:/www.actix.com/support/ ......... 10 Contact Actix Support........................................................................ 10 About Actix A Solutions ............................................................................11 Before you start ........................................................................................12 About data aggregation (binning) in Actix Solutions.......................... 12

2 ANALYZING UMTS DATA ............................15
The Analyzer interface .............................................................................15 Configure network information .................................................................16 Obtain site data in tabular format ...................................................... 16 Import cell site data for the first time.................................................. 17 Set a network information file ............................................................ 23 Manage data ............................................................................................24 Load data files ................................................................................... 24 Find data attributes in the Workspace Explorer................................. 24 Delete data files................................................................................. 25 Menu options in the Workspace Explorer.................................................26 View summary data..................................................................................27 UMTS pre-configured reports ............................................................ 27 The Message Browser ...................................................................... 29 The Protocol Stack Browser .............................................................. 30 View attribute data....................................................................................31 View data in a Map ............................................................................ 31 Replay the data ................................................................................. 33 View data in a Form .......................................................................... 34 View data in a Chart .......................................................................... 35 View data in a Table.......................................................................... 37 View data in a Workbook................................................................... 37 About synchronized data windows .................................................... 38 Configure your Solution............................................................................39 Set up Maps ...................................................................................... 39 Change the size of cell site sectors ................................................... 42 Show lines to cells on a map ............................................................. 43 Modifying event detection threshold values....................................... 45 Loading large amounts of data.................................................................46 About Network Images ...................................................................... 46 Performance limitations...................................................................................... 46 Create a Network Image.................................................................... 47 Load data into a Network Image........................................................ 48 View data from a Network Image ...................................................... 49 Actix A Solutions Getting Started Contents 1

Integrate uplink and downlink data...........................................................50 Queries.....................................................................................................51 Create a filter ..................................................................................... 51 Filter the data .................................................................................... 53 Generate new reports...............................................................................54

3 ANALYZING CDMA DATA............................55
The Analyzer interface .............................................................................55 Configure network information .................................................................56 Import network information ................................................................ 56 Set a CDMA network information file................................................. 58 Manage data ............................................................................................59 Load data files ................................................................................... 59 Find and use data in the Workspace Explorer................................... 59 Delete data files................................................................................. 61 View summary data..................................................................................62 CDMA pre-configured reports............................................................ 62 The Message Browser ...................................................................... 64 The Protocol Stack Browser .............................................................. 65 View attribute data....................................................................................66 View data in a Map ............................................................................ 66 Replay the data ................................................................................. 68 View data in a Form .......................................................................... 68 View data in a Chart .......................................................................... 70 View data in a Table.......................................................................... 72 View data in a Workbook................................................................... 73 About synchronized data windows .................................................... 73 Configure your Solution............................................................................74 Map backgrounds and layers ............................................................ 74 Show lines to cells on a map ............................................................. 77 Change the size of CDMA cell site sectors ....................................... 78 Loading large amounts of data.................................................................79 About Network Images ...................................................................... 79 Performance limitations...................................................................................... 79 Create a Network Image.................................................................... 80 Load data into a Network Image........................................................ 80 View data from a Network Image ...................................................... 81 CDMA StateTip ........................................................................................82 CDMA Toolkit ...........................................................................................83 Integrate reverse and forward link data....................................................84 Queries.....................................................................................................85 Create a filter ..................................................................................... 85 Filter the data .................................................................................... 86 Generate new reports...............................................................................87

4 ANALYZING GSM DATA ..............................89
The Analyzer interface .............................................................................89 Configure network information .................................................................90 Import network information ................................................................ 90 Set a network information file ............................................................ 92 Manage data ............................................................................................93 Load data files ................................................................................... 93 Find and use data in the Workspace Explorer................................... 93 2 Contents Actix A Solutions Getting Started

Delete data files................................................................................. 95 View summary data..................................................................................96 GSM pre-configured reports .............................................................. 96 The Message Browser ...................................................................... 99 The Protocol Stack Browser ............................................................ 100 View attribute data..................................................................................101 View data in a Map .......................................................................... 101 Replay the data ............................................................................... 103 View data in a Form ........................................................................ 103 View data in a Chart ........................................................................ 104 View data in a Table........................................................................ 106 View data in a Workbook................................................................. 107 About synchronized data windows .................................................. 107 Configure your Solution..........................................................................108 Map backgrounds and layers .......................................................... 108 Change the size of GSM cell site sectors........................................ 111 Show lines to cells on a map ........................................................... 111 Loading large amounts of data...............................................................113 About Network Images .................................................................... 113 Performance limitations.................................................................................... 113 Create a Network Image.................................................................. 114 Load data into a Network Image...................................................... 114 View data from a Network Image .................................................... 115 Integrate uplink and downlink data.........................................................116 Queries...................................................................................................117 Create a filter ................................................................................... 117 Filter the data .................................................................................. 118 Generate new reports.............................................................................119

5 ANALYZING A AND ABIS DATA ...................120
Choose A or Abis Scenarios ..................................................................121 The Statistics Explorer ...........................................................................122 Abis Call Analysis ............................................................................ 123 Filter the Workspace Explorer ......................................................... 123 Superstream PCM Link/Drive Test data.................................................124 GSM A and Abis pre-configured reports ................................................125 GSM A application packs ................................................................ 125 A General Analysis........................................................................................... 125 A Subscriber Analysis ...................................................................................... 126 A Handover Analysis ........................................................................................ 126 GSM Abis application packs............................................................ 127 Abis Quick Analysis.......................................................................................... 127 Abis Balance and Sensitivity ............................................................................ 128 Abis Network Design ........................................................................................ 128 Abis Traffic Handovers and Failures ................................................................ 129

6 ANALYZING GPRS DATA ..........................130
Choose Gb Scenarios ............................................................................131 The Protocol Stack Browser...................................................................132 GPRS pre-configured reports.................................................................133 GPRS Gb application packs ............................................................ 133 GPRS Gb Signaling Analysis ........................................................................... 133 GPRS Gb Throughput Analysis........................................................................ 134

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Contents 3

Examine Gb Load Time Queries ............................................................134 Load Time Queries in each Scenario .............................................. 135 Analyze GPRS Drive Test data ..............................................................137 Map DT files lacking GPS data........................................................ 137

7 ANALYZING IS-136 DATA .........................138
The Analyzer interface ...........................................................................138 Configure network information ...............................................................139 Import network information .............................................................. 139 Set a network information file .......................................................... 141 Manage data ..........................................................................................142 Load data files ................................................................................. 142 Find and use data in the Workspace Explorer................................. 142 Delete data files............................................................................... 144 View summary data................................................................................145 TDMA pre-configured reports .......................................................... 145 Reset thresholds for a new analysis................................................................. 147 The Message Browser .................................................................... 148 The Protocol Stack Browser ............................................................ 149 View attribute data..................................................................................150 View data in a Map .......................................................................... 150 Replay the data ............................................................................... 152 View data in a Form ........................................................................ 152 View data in a Chart ........................................................................ 153 View data in a Table........................................................................ 155 View data in a Workbook................................................................. 156 About synchronized data windows .................................................. 156 Configure your Solution..........................................................................157 Map backgrounds and layers .......................................................... 157 Display network information ............................................................ 159 Show lines to cells on a map ........................................................... 160 Loading large amounts of data...............................................................162 About Network Images .................................................................... 162 Performance limitations.................................................................................... 162 Create a Network Image.................................................................. 163 Load data into a Network Image...................................................... 163 View data from a Network Image .................................................... 164 Integrate uplink and downlink data.........................................................165 Queries...................................................................................................166 Create a filter ................................................................................... 166 Filter the data .................................................................................. 167 Generate new reports.............................................................................168

8 ANALYZING IDEN DATA ...........................169
The Analyzer interface ...........................................................................169 Configure network information ...............................................................170 Import network information .............................................................. 170 Set a network information file .......................................................... 172 Manage data ..........................................................................................173 Load data files ................................................................................. 173 Find and use data in the Workspace Explorer................................. 173 Delete data files............................................................................... 175 View summary data................................................................................176

4 Contents

Actix A Solutions Getting Started

iDEN pre-configured reports............................................................ 176 Reset thresholds for a new analysis................................................................. 178 The Message Browser .................................................................... 179 The Protocol Stack Browser ............................................................ 180 View attribute data..................................................................................181 View data in a Map .......................................................................... 181 Replay the data ............................................................................... 183 View data in a Form ........................................................................ 183 View data in a Chart ........................................................................ 184 View data in a Table........................................................................ 186 View data in a Workbook................................................................. 187 About synchronized data windows .................................................. 187 Configure your Solution..........................................................................188 Map backgrounds and layers .......................................................... 188 Display network information ............................................................ 190 Show lines to cells on a map ........................................................... 191 Loading large amounts of data...............................................................193 About Network Images .................................................................... 193 Performance limitations.................................................................................... 193 Create a Network Image.................................................................. 194 Load data into a Network Image...................................................... 194 View data from a Network Image .................................................... 195 Queries...................................................................................................196 Create a filter ................................................................................... 196 Filter the data .................................................................................. 197 Generate new reports.............................................................................198

9 INDEX ....................................................199

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Contents 5

1

Introducing Actix A Solutions

About this guide
This guide assumes you (or your administrator) have already installed and started your solution. See the Actix A Solutions Installation and Licensing Guide for details. This guide is aimed at showing you all of the solution platform's basic features. Not every product function is described—just the core information, so you can be productive with your solution right from the start. For detailed information on other areas of the product, see the online help. The chapters in this guide fall into these main sections: • Introduction An overview of the product and technical support information. Technology-specific walkthroughs Because the various mobile telephone technologies use different terminology and different approaches to analysis, this guide contains a separate section for each. Index For more experienced users, this is the best place to start looking for information.

•

•

For a detailed understanding of your solution, you should attend a full training or workshop session. These can be tailored exclusively to your individual or corporate requirements.

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Introducing Actix A Solutions 7

Getting help
To get a complete overview of the product, you should refer to the online help, which also contains systematic instructions for various tasks and reference help for immediate assistance.

Use the online help
You can start the online help from the Help menu, by selecting the Contents option.

The following features of the online help will assist you in finding an answer to your problem. The Contents tab displays the help topics in an ordered, collapsible view. Double-click on a desired topic to view it.

The Index tab lets you find any index entries that match a word or part of the word you are looking for. As you type, the list of matching topics changes. Select the desired topic and click Display to view it.

8 Introducing Actix A Solutions

Actix A Solutions Getting Started

The Search tab lets you type in the word or words to search for, and then click List Topics. All matching topics are then listed. Select the desired topic and click Display to view it.

If you need to refer to a help topic often, you may want to add it to your 'favorites' list. Click on the Favorites tab, and click Add to add the displayed topic to the list. Select a topic from the list and click Display to view it.

The context-sensitive attribute reference help
From the Help menu, select Show Context Help. As you select an attribute in the Workspace Explorer, related extra information is displayed in the help window.

As Actix is committed to provide rapid support for new file formats, this reference help may not be up to date. If there are particular attributes you would like to see in the help but are not currently documented, please email technical support: [email protected].

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Introducing Actix A Solutions 9

Visit the Actix Support web site: http:/www.actix.com/support/
The Support area allows you to: • • • • • • • Register the products Report problems with any application Download the latest software releases, associated documentation and customization files Download the latest attribute help files Download applicable drivers and third party applications Access Frequently Asked Questions Learn tips and tricks from other users

Certain areas of this section are password protected and can only be accessed by authorised users with registered products.

Contact Actix Support
1 2 First, read the Release Notes provided on the CD or on the support web site to see if this is a known issue. If the problem appears unreported, make a note of the problem and the steps you took that led to the problem occurring. Then, from the Help menu, select About Actix Solutions, and note the release version. Please have ready your version number, any screenshots of error messages, and any small sample files (zipped if they are very large) where the problem occurs. Email Actix Support at [email protected] to log the problem and ask for a known solution or workaround. We welcome any suggestions for improvement concerning the software or related documentation.

3

4

Actix is committed to providing excellent technical support for its entire product range. To achieve this we have dedicated Technical Support telephone numbers and a specific area on our worldwide web site to enable 24-hour support. UK Direct +44 (0) 208 735 6303 09:00 – 17:00 GMT US Direct +1 877 722 2849 +1 877 72 ACTIX – US toll free +1 703 648 0300 09:00 – 17:00 Eastern Time (GMT -05:00) Asia Pacific +65 332 2313 09:00 – 17:00 (GMT +08:00)

Outside of hours: Please leave your contact details and a brief description of the nature of the call.

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Actix A Solutions Getting Started

About Actix A Solutions
Actix A Solutions are a series of tools for post-processing cellular network data, and run under Microsoft Windows on a PC. The platform for A Solutions, Analyzer, can load network performance data from many different sources:

Core Network Interfaces

Call Trace

Area Level Protocol Trace

Subscriber Level Protocol Trace

User Level Drive Test

The data sources could include field-test equipment and switch call traces, and the data could be 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. The Actix A Solutions address applications such as: • • • • • • Network performance optimization Feature testing Service validation Problem diagnosis and analysis Network bench-marking Competitive analysis

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Introducing Actix A Solutions 11

Before you start
About data aggregation (binning) in Actix Solutions
In order to provide a reasonably small number of data points from both a computing and an analysis perspective, Actix Solutions aggregate logged data into groups called bins. The aggregation method used to create one bin from many data points depends on the type of parameter. For example, measurement parameters (such as UTRA CarrierRSSI and UetransmittedPower) are binned by averaging all component measurements into one data point. For network state parameters, such as Scrambling codes, a bin is given the most frequently occurring value (the mode) among the component measurements. Events (such as dropped calls and handovers) are binned by the number of events occurring within the component measurements. There are four methods for determining how to divide data into bins: message binning, time binning, distance binning, and location binning. Time-based binning combines data in the time domain using a user-specified duration for the bin. The speed of travel during logging will affect how many log files you see in a certain area. The diagram below looks at a one-second bin.

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.

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Message binning — If you set the number of messages to average equal 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).

Grid (not seen)

Drive Routes

All points in this box will be binned together to produce one plotted point

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Introducing Actix A Solutions 13

To change the aggregation mode—also known as the 'binning' mode: 1 2 Within your Actix Solution, from the Tools menu, select Preferences to open the Preferences dialog. 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.

3

Click OK.

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2

Analyzing UMTS data

The Analyzer interface
After the startup is complete, the application window looks like this:

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 Actix Solution with your preferred layouts.

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Analyzing UMTS data 15

Configure network information
The Network Explorer is a tool available from the Cells menu that allows you to import network elements from delimited text files, possibly exported from a planning tool. This data is then stored in a file called cellrefs.txt. You can also use the Network Explorer to browse and edit loaded network information. This section describes how to import delimited data.

Obtain site data in tabular format
In order to import cell site data from your own network, you will need to obtain a delimited text file containing the data listed in the table below. To maximize the benefit your Actix Solution can bring to WCDMA network analysis, the parameters listed in bold in the table on the following page are required for cell data to function interactively with logged data in the main workspace. The remaining parameters are optional. The data may come from a network database or a planning tool configuration file. As long as the data is in a tabular format with one row for each sector, your Actix Solution will be able to import the data. WCDMA Cell Site Parameters for Import:

Parameter Site Name Site Number Latitude Longitude Sector Number Azimuth Beamwidth

Actix Group WCDMA_Site WCDMA_Site WCDMA_Site WCDMA_Site WCDMA_Cell WCDMA_Cell WCDMA_Cell

Actix Name SiteName SiteID Latitude Longitude Sector_ID Azimuth
Beamwidth

Purpose
Text description of the Site for display on map. Numeric identifier for the site. Locates site icons on map. Locates site icons on map. Sector-specific information useful for display on maps (can be alpha or numeric) Orients the sector icons on the map. Governs the shape of the sector “wedge” icon to reflect the beamwidth of antenna deployed at the site. Equivalent Isotropic Radiated Power – for informational purposes only

EIRP

WCDMA_Cell

EIRP

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Actix A Solutions Getting Started

Parameter SC MCC MNC LAC CI BSIC Neighbor List

Actix Group WCDMA_Cell WCDMA_Cell WCDMA_Cell WCDMA_Cell WCDMA_Cell WCDMA_Cell WCDMA_Cell

Actix Name SC MCC MNC LAC CI BSIC WCDMANeighborList

Purpose
Used for cell site identification and to calculate lines to cells Mobile Country Code – for informational purposes only National Domain Code – for informational purposes only Location Area Code – for informational purposes only Cell Identity – for informational purposes only Legacy parameter - unused Used to define a pre-defined neighbor list for each cell. Used during neighbor list recommendations analysis. Configurable text field that specifies which cell layer (for example, by technology, band or status) the site belongs to. Used for multiple cell layers.

Layer Type

WCDMA_Cell

LayerType

Import cell site data for the first time
Once you have obtained your cell site database in tabdelimited format, you are ready to open the Network Explorer and import the site information. To import the data 1 The initial network data is shown below, and could have been produced from a planning tool:

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Analyzing UMTS data 17

2

From the Cells menu, select Network Explorer. The Network Explorer display consists of two panels. The left panel contains a tree view of the network element data. The right panel shows details about relevant parameters for the current selection.

3

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.

18 Analyzing UMTS data

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The Import Settings page of the Custom Import Wizard is now displayed:

4 5

Give the Template a meaningful Template Name ('UMTS example' in this example). Check the appropriate Delimiter that separates the data from the file into different columns. If you choose the wrong delimited, you will see the effect in the Data Preview window at the bottom of the dialog. 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 'Neighbours' column in the example for step 1), adjust these settings as necessary. Click Next.

6

7

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Analyzing UMTS data 19

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.

Note that each of the field names has an associated icon: Key fields Required fields You must select a field type for this field, but you cannot set a default value. These must be either bound to a particular type or have a default value set. Binding particular field types or setting default values is not strictly necessary for this field.

Other fields

8

Open up the node called WCDMA_Site. 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 WCDMA_site node. Open the WCDMA_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.

9

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.

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10 Repeat for each of the fields in the WCDMA_Cell node. A description of each of these parameters and their use is given in the table at the beginning of this section. For this example, we will ignore the following columns: EIRP, MCC, MNC, LAC, CI and BSIC. 11 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. 12 Inspect the cell data in the Network Explorer by expanding the All_WCDMA_Site_Elements folder in the left-hand pane of the Network Explorer. 13 Double-click on any site name in the right hand pane. The Name, ID, latitude and longitude of the site will appear, as well as a folder containing WCDMA Cell Elements. Drill into the WCDMA Cell Elements folder and examine the values corresponding to each sector. 14 Save the formatted site information by clicking Save. 15 Close the Network Explorer window by clicking the 'X' at the upper right hand corner. 16 The window shown below is now displayed. Click Yes to overwrite the old settings ('No' would append this information to your existing network data):

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Analyzing UMTS data 21

17 After closing the Network Explorer, view a new map by selecting View → Display New Map.

18 If cell icons do not appear on the map, right click on the map and select Zoom, Go to Layer, WCDMA_Site… to zoom the map to the appropriate location. 19 Set the cells to be labeled by SC as described earlier.

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Set a network information file
1 From the Tools menu, select Preferences to open the Preferences dialog:

2

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).

3

Click OK to close the Preferences dialog. You will now see a message saying that the new file will take effect with the next workspace created or loaded. You may now want to close and restart your Actix Solution for the change to take effect.

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Analyzing UMTS data 23

Manage data
Load data files
The simplest way to load logfile data is as follows: 1 From the main toolbar, click the Open Logfile button:

This displays the Open dialog. 2 Select an appropriate file. Files of Type defaults to 'All Formats', but you can select a specific file type to look for. This also illustrates the many file formats available. The Network Image feature (see later) is more practical than using Open Logfile if you need to analyse many large logfiles

Find data attributes in the Workspace Explorer
The Workspace Explorer window is a graphical display of all loaded data or log files and the data structure contained within each file. Loaded files are at the highest level, with devices and other data streams displayed at lower levels. The name of each type of element is shown below. Note that the exact structures and icons used depend on the data file loaded and the group that you are examining.

The exact structures and icons used depend on the data file In UMTS, 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. 24 Analyzing UMTS data Actix A Solutions Getting Started

Select Tools, Find Attribute (or use the hotkey Ctrl + Shift + F) to add a search panel is added to the Workspace 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: o 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.

o

•

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. 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 Workspace 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 Workspace Explorer. Done: The search for attribute panel is closed. Search results remain visible in the Search Results tab.

•

•

•

Delete data files
To remove a data file from the Workspace Explorer 1 2 Right-click on the name of the logfile to display the Close Logfile option. Click Close Logfile. The data file is now removed from the Workspace Explorer display.

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Analyzing UMTS data 25

Menu options in the Workspace Explorer
From the Workspace Explorer panel, right-click on a stream or network image to produce a series of options, shown on the right. Most frequently-used features can be accessed in this way.

Most analysis methods activated in a similar way by right-clicking on an attribute or event:

Queries have a different set of options:

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View summary data
The Workspace Explorer provides several ways in which you can examine summary or overview information on your loaded data:

Message Browser

Pre-configured reports (by name)

Protocol Stack Browser

Once you have used the summary data views to identify problem areas, you can use the attribute views to examine the data in detail. For more information, see the section View attribute data.

UMTS pre-configured reports
Your Actix Solution provides sets or 'application packs' of preconfigured reports, each concentrating on a particular type of network analysis. These reports distil advanced analysis techniques into simple, comprehensive spreadsheet reports, ready for immediate use by staff of all levels of experience. The application packs are listed under the Analysis menu– which ones actually appear depend on the type of data file loaded. To use an application pack 1 2 Ensure that you have a data file loaded and that a valid CellRefs file has been set. From the Analysis menu, select an application pack (in this example, 'UMTS Call Statistics') to open the Cell Explorer window.

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Analyzing UMTS data 27

3

Use the top pane as necessary to narrow down 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.

4

Double-click on a report icon to open the report window:

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Actix A Solutions Getting Started

This will report on all data selected by cell in the upper tree-view panel. 5 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.

The Message Browser
The Message Browser only appears as a pop-up menu option at the data stream level in the Workspace Explorer. • From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the 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.

Locate specific text

Select from available data streams

Filters and formats the display of selected message types

Event panel shows a tree view of messages in the selected data stream

Select a message to synchronise to equivalent data points in other open data windows

Message Panel shows the full message decode

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Analyzing UMTS data 29

The Protocol Stack Browser
The Protocol Stack Browser only appears as a pop-up menu option at the data stream level in the Workspace Explorer. 1 From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the data stream and select Protocol Stack Browser.

2

Now select the required browser view. Each view displays messaging and information appropriate to that view. The example shown here is the UMTS UTRAN Protocol Signaling view.

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View attribute data
From the Workspace Explorer, you can right-click any data attribute to display a suitable pop-up menu of options:

Select one of the display methods to open the appropriate data display window.

View data in a Map
1 From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on UTRA_Ue_CarrierRssi and select Display on Map.

2

Click on the Pan button.

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Analyzing UMTS data 31

3 4 5

Click and drag the data around the map window. Experiment with the Zoom buttons. In the Workspace Explorer, open up the 'Event Data' set and under 'Call', drag the Uu_CallDropped' event onto the map, which should look similar to this:

Adding various events to the mapped data can help you see where problems are occurring. 6 Drag another data attribute onto the map. You can also change the size, symbol or color of the data, apply offsets to an attribute or merge attributes for a multidimensional display. See the online help for further details. The map legend defines histogram ranges for charts. 7 To hide a data series, in the legend pane on the left, 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 section 'Configure your Solution'.

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Replay the data
With a drive test file, you may want to recreate the drive test by 'playing' through the data file from beginning to end. You can do this using the Replay feature. To open the Replay control, from the main menu, select Tools, then Display Replay.

End of drive test

Currently selected point

Start of drive test

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View data in a Form
While examining data on a map, you can also view a selection of data attributes for the same data point by using the Forms tool. 1 From the View menu, select Forms and then an appropriate Form name (from the Workspace Explorer, you can also right-click on the stream name and select Display Form followed by the form name). In the map window, click Select point. and select a data

2

The Form window now displays a variety of attributes based on the data point you selected. Below are two form windows above a map window, displaying data for the selected data point on the map:

See the online help for details on how to create your own forms.

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View data in a Chart
1 Use the pop-up menu to display the data attribute 'UE_TxPow' in a chart window.

You can display more than one attribute on the same chart. 2 Select and drag the data attribute 'ServRxQualFull' from the Workspace Explorer window onto the existing chart.

You can also zoom into selected areas of the chart by defining a frame for the zoom.

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3

On the chart, click the upper left corner of the zooming rectangle, and drag down to the lower right extent of the rectangle.

4

Release the mouse button to complete the zoom action:

Note that the zoom only operates in the X-axis, not in the Y-axis.

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5 6

Now return the chart its original state and zoom back out by dragging a box, but this time up and to the right. Use the right mouse button to scroll and pan around the chart window. Although you can scroll the X-axis for all attributes on the chart, you can only pan the Y-axis for the last attribute to be displayed on the chart.

View data in a Table
Tables let you examine the numeric series, histogram and statistical data for the selected attribute. • From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on a data attribute and select Display on Table to open the Table.

•

Experiment with the other tabs in the window.

View data in a Workbook
Workbooks let you examine the data for the selected attribute within a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. • From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on a data attribute and select Display on Workbook to open the spreadsheet. See the section Generate New Reports to see how to create consistent Excel workbook reports.

•

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About synchronized data windows
The data in each of these windows is synchronized, so that when displaying the same data attribute in a map, chart or table, if you select a data point in one window, all related map, chart or table windows also highlight the data point. You should have a map and a chart window open, both displaying the 'UE_TxPow' data attribute. 1 From the map window, click on Select.

Note the other toolbar buttons for selecting data points. 2 Now click on a data point on the map. You should see that the relevant parts of the map and the chart look as shown below, with a line appearing at the equivalent time on the chart:

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Configure your Solution
Set up Maps
This section shows you how to load MapInfo tabular (.tab) data to present data analyses on map backdrops. 1 2 Create a new map by selecting View → Display new Map Click on the Maximize icon to maximize the Map window.

3

In the Map Window, click on the Layers icon: The Layer Control dialog now opens: All layers in the map from top to bottom, with the top layer currently selected

.

Create, delete or export layers

Change the properties of the currently selected layer

Change the order of the currently selected layer

Making a checkmark in a layer's box controls: if the layer is visible if objects on it can be selected if the layer can be annotated (unchecking this 'locks' the Annotations layer from having any further annotations added)

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4

In the Layer Control dialog, click Add to open the Open Layer dialog. Select or type in the name of a MapInfo Map (*.tab) file, then click Open. MapInfo layers are named according to the geographic location of the data and by the type of data contained in the file. The following table lists some of the common abbreviations used for MapInfo data types:

Suffix Y1 Y2 X1 X2 Pc Pn Pm R H S Wr Wb Lm Cb Mc Cy

Layer Type RtHwy010_Top RtHwy010_Bot IntShld010 IntShld1040 Cultural Points Natural Points Municipal Points Railroads Highways Streets Water (rivers) Water (bodies of water) Landmarks City Boundary Minor Civic Division County

5

You may want to modify the layer properties by selecting the layer and choosing the various options within the Layer Control Dialog: Properties → Labels: Use the Label Properties dialog to show, hide, or modify map labels.

• • •

To turn off labels (recommended to improve map load time), uncheck the Display within range boxes. Check boxes also are also available to Allow Overlapped Text and Allow Duplicated Text. The label font can be controlled through the Label Style button.

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• •

The label position and label offset can be modified at the bottom right corner of the dialog. Select OK to exit the Label Properties dialog. Properties → Display: Use the Display Properties dialog to control the display features of the map layer.

• •

Override the default vector coloring by checking Override Style and modifying the Layer Style. Select OK to exit the Display Properties dialog. Reorder → Up and Reorder → Down: Use the Reorder buttons to change the ordering of the layers.

•

Moving map layers to the bottom of the stack is recommended to provide an uncluttered backdrop for cell site data and log file parameters. Layer Accessibility: To display a layer, check the box next to the layer name under the eye icon . To make a layer selectable, check the box next to the layer name under the arrow icon . To make a layer writeable, check the box next to the layer name under the pencil icon .

•

• 6

Layers → Remove: Use the Remove button to remove a map layer from the workspace. After modifying any desired layer properties, close the Layer Control dialog with the Close button and changes will take effect. Pan the map viewing area to the new map by rightclicking in the map area, then choosing Zoom → Go to Layer and selecting the map layer you just added.

7

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8

Reorder the map layers using the Up and Down buttons on the Map Layer dialog to improve the appearance of the map Right-click on the map and choose Zoom → Zoom In from the pop-up menu or click on the Zoom In button on the Map toolbar.

9

10 Click and drag a rectangle around a small area of interest on the map. Return the cursor to the passive mode by clicking on the Select button. 11 To return to the previous view, right-click on the map and choose Zoom →Previous View. 12 For some detailed layers, like the street layers, you can control at what degree of magnification they become visible. This helps to eliminate cluttered map displays. In the case of the S (street names) layer, you can control the point at which the street names and street numbers become visible on the map. In the Map Layers, select the S layer, and use the Properties Display dialog to set the Display within Zoom levels 010 miles. For the street numbers, use the Properties Labels to set the visible range to 0-3 miles. Note what happens as a result of your changes.

Change the size of cell site sectors
You may want to change the size of cell site sectors as displayed on a map. This is especially useful if you are using multiple cell layers. 1 2 3 From the map window, click on Cell Sites to open the Sites/Cell Properties dialog. Set the Series to be WCDMA_Cell. Set the Cell Size to be an attribute shared by all related cell sites, such as Layer_type (recommended if available from your cellrefs file) or MCC, and click OK. This will be displayed as a 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. 42 Analyzing UMTS data Actix A Solutions Getting Started

4

5 6

Show lines to cells on a map
1 2 3 From the map window, click on Layers to open the Layer Control dialog. Select the appropriate cells layer. Click Lines to open the Lines Configuration dialog.

4

As shown above, set the Lines draw mode to 'Selection', Color lines with to 'Uu_ActiveSet_SC', check that the Disable box is empty, and click OK, then Yes.

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5 6

Close the Layer Control dialog. Zoom In on data points near a cell site, and use Select to pick a data point. A solid line is drawn to the serving cell site, with dotted lines drawn to neighboring cells.

If 'All datapoints' was selected in the Line layer properties dialog, you would not need to select a data point—all data points would have a line to their neighbor cells. This can be useful in some situations.

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Modifying event detection threshold values
You can modify threshold values for event detection using the Tools, Display Thresholds command. To modify the value, simply click on the associated number and type in the new value. In the example below, a threshold is available for too many servers. This threshold applies when four or more pilots are within a certain range of the best server. In other words, if the threshold is set to 3 dB, an event will appear on the map every time four or more pilots are within 3 dB of the best server (Uu_ActiveSet_EcNo_0).

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Loading large amounts of data
About Network Images
You may need to load a large amount of data, because you have large logfiles, you have a large number of logfiles, or both. To use the Open Logfile command would be timeconsuming, and you might be loading data that you would never actually use in any analysis. The solution in this case is to use the Network Image function. A Network Image is a repository into which you can load data from many files at the same time. However, only a small subset of the available data is loaded. This means less flexibility as you have fewer options with which to examine the data, so you must think about what you want to achieve before proceeding. • • Use a Network Image when there is a well-known, high-level analysis process and large amounts of data. Do not use a Network Image when you need to drill into details or follow a very flexible or complex analysis process.

You can also add data to the Network Image later, but for the data stored within the Network Image to be consistent, the same binning method and time-offset settings must be used. In your Actix Solution there are typically several Network Image templates provided for each mobile phone technology, and you can create and maintain as many individual Network Images as you need, for various analysis purposes. For more information on Network Images, including how to create new templates for Network Images, see the online help.

Performance limitations
Binning - When there are a large number of bins, memory usage increases and load speed deteriorates. Use lowresolution location binning where possible. Logfiles - It is better to use a few large files than many small files. If you have problems with many small files you can load a batch in one worksession, restart your Actix Solution and load another batch. Scanner data - Network Images are not suitable for use with large arrays of data, and some scanner uses are not possible.

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Create a Network Image
Network Images are created by selecting an appropriate Network Image template file. One or more Network Image templates are provided for each technology available for your license. Advanced users can create new templates using the Network Image template Wizard (for details see the online help). To create a Network Image 1 From the Network Image menu, select Create Network Image to open the Create Network Image dialog:

2 3

Select the UMTS Network Image template and click OK. From the Save As dialog, enter a File name and location for the Network Image file and click Save. You may want to share this Network Image file with colleagues, so ensure that you save the file with a sensible name in a suitable location. The Network Image is saved in the specified location with a .dat file extension, and is displayed in the Workspace Explorer panel:

At this stage, the Network Image does not contain any data, so the next step is to load it up with data from existing streams or logfiles.

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Load data into a Network Image
There are several ways to load data into an existing Network Image. You can also load data into a Network Image that already contains data. Note that, for the resulting Network Image to contain useful data, all data loaded into the Network Image must use the same binning method and time offset. Data should be binned at a low resolution (for example, 200meter location binning), and avoid message binning as performance will drop significantly. To load data into a Network Image 1 If the required Network Image is not already shown in the Workspace Explorer, from the Network Image menu, select Attach Network Image. Select the appropriate Network Image .dat file and click Open to display the Network Image in the Workspace Explorer.

2

From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the Network Image and select the appropriate data loading option. Select one or more logfiles from a folder

Select stream from Workspace Explorer

Select a folder and load all logfiles in that folder and all subfolders

3

Select the required data loading option, and choose which stream, folder or multiple logfiles to load. When the data has been processed, you should see a message window showing the results for each stream or logfile:

4

Click OK to close the message window.

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View data from a Network Image
Data in a Network Image is not as flexible as data in a normal Analyzer stream – for example, you cannot perform these actions on the Network Image data: • • • • Apply filters Create/edit/run new queries Run custom attributes Create superstreams

You can use Maps, Charts, Tables and Workbooks to display Network Image data attributes. To view data from a Network Image 1 If the required Network Image is not already shown in the Workspace Explorer, from the Network Image menu, select Attach Network Image. Select the appropriate Network Image .dat file and click Open to display the Network Image in the Workspace Explorer.

2

From the Workspace Explorer, open up the structure underneath your attached Network Image.

3

Now view the batched Network Image data attributes in the same way as you would for standard data attributes, using maps, charts and so on, by rightclicking on the attributes and selecting options from the pop-up menu.

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Integrate uplink and downlink data
The reverse link data from the switch or a protocol analyzer can be integrated with the drive-test data. This lets you see how reverse link attributes behave at specific mobile locations. In Actix Solutions, this technique of integrating data files is known as 'superstreaming'. 1 2 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. Highlight the uplink data stream and select an attribute using the attribute picker button on the right. Highlight the downlink data stream and select the same attribute. Click OK.

3 4

5 6

7 8 9

The superstream is now generated and appears in the Workspace Explorer. You can view data from the superstream in any of the standard data display windows.

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Queries
Actix Solutions provide a querying interface that lets you construct simple or complex expressions. These expressions extract meaningful performance data, based on user-defined thresholds or the value of other expressions. As an example, you can create a query that returns statistics for a particular event—such as a dropped call—for a given window in time around that event. This is useful when looking for data trends. Queries are created and edited from the Tools menu, Analysis Manager option. You can create these query types: • • • • • • Filter queries Binned queries Histogram queries Statistical queries Crosstab queries Event queries

You can also: • • • Perform logical and arithmetic operators Save queries to a default Workspace Apply filters to queries

Create a filter
This example query is the same as the existing High Mobile Transmit Power. 1 From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on a data stream and select Filter, then Create a New Filter. The Filter Wizard opens. 2 Enter 'High Mobile Transmit Power – test' as the name of the filter.

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3

Click on the right-arrow of the attribute picker and select 'UMTS > DownLink Measurements > UE_TxPow'. Set the filter operation to 'Greater than (>)'. Set the threshold to '0'.

4 5

6

Click OK to close the Wizard.

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Filter the data
Several default filters are provided in UMTS to allow you to select the data that is displayed in the Workspace. Right-click on the stream name, then select Filter followed by the filter name to toggle the filter on or off:

Poor Mobile Receive Power High Mobile Transmit Power Low Mobile Transmit Power High Mobile Receive Power Poor Ec/No High Ec/No

CPICH_RSCP_in_ActiveSet[0] < -95 dBm UeTransmittedPower > 0 dBm UeTransmittedPower < -30 dBm CPICH_RSCP_in_ActiveSet[0] > -80 dBm CPICH_EcNo_in_ActiveSet[0] < -15 dB CPICH_EcNo_in_ActiveSet[0] > -8 dB

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Generate new reports
You may want to create high-level management reports based on your collected data. You can print from map and chart windows, but the Workbook function (using Microsoft Excel™) allows you to collate these views and perform other data analysis functions to produce an integrated, polished report. This task assumes that there is an Excel template created from your Actix Solution that you can use to generate a report. If you do not have a report template, see the online help for details of how to create one. 1 2 3 From the Workbook menu, select Open Workbook and select an appropriate Microsoft Excel template. Click Open. Select the data source that you want to view in the workbook report.

4

Click OK to process and display the data in the workbook. You can proceed to adapt the workbook, use other Excel tools on the data, and so on.

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3

Analyzing CDMA data

The Analyzer interface
After the startup is complete, the application window looks like this:

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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Configure network information
Import network information
You must have your network information defined in a text file (usually called 'cellrefs', although it can be given any name) before you can import it. You can use the Network Explorer to import, view and edit the cellrefs file. If you manually create a cellrefs file, you must have this as the first line:
;#NetworkData – datafile

If you import the file using the Network Explorer, this line is added automatically. To maximize the benefit for CDMA network analysis, the following parameters should be included in the import:
Parameter Site Name Site Number Latitude Longitude Sector Number Azimuth Beamwidth Actix Workspace Name CDMA_Site SiteName CDMA_Site SiteID CDMA_Site SiteLatitude CDMA_Site SiteLongitude CDMA_Cell Sector ID Can 1,2,3 etc. or a combination of site numbers CDMA_Cell Azimuth CDMA_Cell Beamwidth Purpose Text description of the Site for display on map. Numeric identifier for the Site. Locates Site icons on the map. Locates Site icons on the map. Sector-specific information useful for display on maps. Orients the sector icons on the map. Governs the shape of the sector 'wedge' on the map to reflect the beamwidth of the antenna deployed at the site. Base station power, used in CDMA Toolkit calculations. Used in CDMA Toolkit calculations, lines to neighbor cells and to color sectors/sites on maps to reflect PN planning. Mobile Country Code System Identity Network Identity Broadcast Identity Text that specifies which cell layer (for example, by technology, band, purpose or status) that the site belongs to. Used for multiple cell layers.

Base Station Power PN Offset

CDMA_Cell EIRP CDMA_Cell PN

MCC SID NID BID Layer type

CDMA_Cell MCC CDMA_Cell SID CDMA_Cell NID CDMA_Cell BID Layer_type

To import the network information 1 From the Tools menu, select Network Explorer to open the Network Explorer window. For more information on using the Network Explorer, see the online help.

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2 3 4 5 6 7

From the toolbar, click Import and select Import From New Template to open the Import dialog. Select the appropriate network data file. Click Open to display the Custom Import Wizard. Give the Template a meaningful Description. Under Delimiters, check Tab. Under General Settings, enter '1' for Ignore header rows and ';' for Array (list) Separator. If your file has more than one header or uses a different array list separator, set these options accordingly. Click on the Column Settings tab. The Column Settings tab allows you to associate a network parameter with a column of data in the text file. Note that each of the field names has an associated icon: Key fields You must select a field type for this field, but you cannot set a default value. These must be either bound to a particular type or have a default value set. Binding particular field types or setting default values is not strictly necessary for this field.

8

Required fields

Other fields

9

Under the Columns heading, click on a setting for a particular field.

10 Select a column binding from the drop-down list. The Wizard then displays the selected parameter against the appropriate column. 11 Select the appropriate columns for CDMA Site and Site Name. Repeat this for the SiteID, Latitude, and Longitude. 12 For the remaining columns, look for the attribute headers under CDMA Cell. Use the Cell ID column for the CDMA Cell Sector ID, Azimuth, Beamwidth, EIRP, PN, MCC, SID, NID, and BID (a description of each of these parameters and their use is described in the table at the beginning of this section).

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13 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 Explorer. When the cellrefs file is updated, you should use the template you have created on the new file, so you do not have to repeat work you have already done, including the column-by-column parameter assignment.

Set a CDMA network information file
1 From the Tools menu, select Preferences to open the Preferences dialog:

2

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).

3

Click OK to close the Preferences dialog. You will now see a message saying that the new file will take effect with the next workspace created or loaded. You may now want to close and restart your Actix Solution for the change to take effect.

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Manage data
Load data files
1 2 From the main toolbar, click the Open Logfile button to display the Open dialog. Select an appropriate file. Files of Type defaults to 'All Formats' but you can select a specific file type to look for. This also illustrates the many file formats available for use with Actix A Solutions. The Network Image feature (see later) is more practical than using Open Logfile if you need to analyse many large logfiles

Find and use data in the Workspace Explorer
The Workspace Explorer window is a graphical display of all loaded data or log files and the data structure contained within each file. Loaded files are at the highest level, with devices and other data streams displayed at lower levels. The name of each type of element is shown below.

The exact structures and icons used depend on the data file 1 Click on the symbols to open out and explore the data in your logfile. See how your data relates to the structure shown above. In the example below, the file 'MyFile1' contains a data stream called 'Qualcomm MDM 1900' (the number is the data stream number within the file, starting from zero).

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The 'CDMA' group contains the 'Pilot Sets' set, which contains the 'SearcherMaxEnergy' data attribute. However, the only objects that you actually need to recognize are filenames, data streams and data attributes. The logical tree-view layout of the Workspace 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 window—for example, a map, chart, table or spreadsheet—to examine the data in detail. You can examine data streams using the Message Browser tool. You can also use Find Attribute from the Tools menu to locate a particular attribute. See the online help for more details. You may also want additional information about a particular data attribute. 2 3 Select 'ActiveDelay_Max1'. From the Help menu, select Show Context Help.

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4

button to dock the attribute help window Click the and drag it to a useful position.

5

Select a new attribute. Note that the help now provides information on that attribute.

Delete data files
To remove a data file from the Workspace Explorer 1 2 Right-click on the name of the logfile to display the Close Logfile option. Click Close Logfile. The data file is now removed from the Workspace Explorer display.

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View summary data
The Workspace Explorer provides several ways in which you can examine summary or overview information on your loaded data:

Message Browser

Pre-configured reports (by name)

Protocol Stack Browser

Once you have used the summary data views to identify problem areas, you can use the attribute views to examine the data in detail. For more information, see the section View attribute data.

CDMA pre-configured reports
Your Actix Solution provides a set of pre-configured reports, each concentrating on a particular type of network analysis. These 'application packs' distil advanced analysis techniques into simple, comprehensive spreadsheet reports, ready for immediate use by staff of all levels of experience. Each Actix Solution has a different set of application packs. The application packs are listed under the Analysis menu– which ones actually appear depend on the type of data file loaded. Note that if you do not have a loaded data file, the Analysis menu option will be grayed-out. See the online help for information on the reports available in your Actix Solution. To use an application pack 1 Ensure that you have a data file loaded and that a valid CellRefs file has been set. Actix A Solutions Getting Started

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2

From the Analysis menu, select an application pack (in this example, 'CDMA Distant Server Analysis'). Once you select an application pack, this window opens:

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. 4 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.

5

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To reset thresholds for a new analysis A number of the application pack reports use Custom Attributes. To change the thresholds for a new analysis, you need to re-run these Custom Attributes directly from the Custom Attribute Manager: • • Distance_Input EcIo_Threshold_Input

You can now re-run the application pack.

The Message Browser
The Message Browser differs from the previous data windows in that it only appears as a pop-up menu option at the data stream level in the Workspace Explorer. • From the Workspace 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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The Protocol Stack Browser
The Protocol Stack Browser only appears as a pop-up menu option at the data stream level in the Workspace Explorer. 1 From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the data stream and select Protocol Stack Browser.

2

Now select the required browser view. Each view displays messaging and information appropriate to that view. The example shown here is the CDMA Signaling (Radio Interface) view.

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View attribute data
From the Workspace Explorer, you can right-click any data attribute to display a suitable pop-up menu of options:

Select one of the display methods to opens the appropriate data display window.

View data in a Map
1 Use the pop-up menu to display the data attribute 'EcIo_1stBest' in a map window.

2 3 4

Click on the Pan button. Click and drag the data around the map window. Experiment with the Zoom buttons.

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5

In the Workspace Explorer, open up the 'Event Data' set and drag the 'WeakPilotWarning' event onto the map, which should look similar to this:

Adding events (for example 'CallDropped') to the mapped data can help you see where problems are occurring. 6 Drag another data attribute onto the map. You can also change the size, symbol or color of the data, apply offsets to an attribute or merge attributes for a multidimensional display. See the online help for further details. The map legend defines histogram ranges for charts. 7 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 section Configure your Solution.

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Replay the data
With a drive test file, you may want to recreate the drive test by 'playing' through the data file from beginning to end. You can do this using the Replay feature. To open the Replay control, from the main menu, select Tools, then Display Replay.

View data in a Form
While examining data on a map, you can also view data attributes for the same data point by using StateForms. 1 From the View menu, select Forms and select an appropriate StateForm (or, from the Workspace Explorer, right-click on a stream name, select Display Form and then the form name).

See the online help for information on the StateForms available for your Actix Solution. 2 In a map window, click Select point. and select a data

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The Forms window now displays a variety of attributes based on the data point you selected. Here is an example StateForm:

You can synchronize all views in other open data windows by clicking on the timeline in Navigator-type StateForms like this. Other StateForms provide information for the currently selected point in the drive test:

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3 4 5

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.

View data in a Chart
1 Use the pop-up menu to display the data attribute 'EcIo_1stBest' in a chart window.

You can display more than one attribute on the same chart. 2 Select and drag the data attribute 'ForwardFER' from the Workspace Explorer window onto the existing chart.

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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.

4

Release the mouse button to complete the zoom action:

Note that the zoom only operates in the X-axis, not in the Y-axis. 5 6 Now return the chart its original state by dragging a box, but this time up and to the right. 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.

View data in a Table
Tables let you examine the numeric series, histogram and statistical data for the selected attribute. • From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the data attribute 'DownLink Measurements > EcIo_1stBest' and select Display on Table. This opens the Table window:

•

Experiment with the other tabs in the window.

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View data in a Workbook
Workbooks let you examine the data for the selected attribute within a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. • From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on a data attribute and select Display on Workbook to open the spreadsheet. See the section Generate New Reports to see how to create consistent Excel workbook reports.

•

About synchronized data windows
The data in each of these windows is synchronized, so that when displaying the same data attribute in a map, chart or table, if you select a data point in one window, all related map, chart or table windows also highlight the data point. You should have a map and a chart window open, both displaying the 'EcIo_1stBest' data attribute. 1 From the map window, click on Select. Note the other toolbar buttons for selecting data points. 2 Now click on a data point on the map. You should see that the relevant parts of the map and the chart look as shown below, with a line appearing at the equivalent time on the chart:

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Configure your Solution
Map backgrounds and layers
This section shows you how to add a background and arrange the layers within a map window. 1 2 Display a data attribute in a map window. Click Layers to open the Layer Control dialog.

Making a checkmark in a layer's box controls: if the layer is visible if objects on it can be selected if the layer can be annotated (unchecking this 'locks' the Annotations layer from having any further annotations added) 3 4 In the Layers box, click Add. From the Open Layer dialog, select one or more MapInfo Map (.tab) files.

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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 R Railroads H Highways S Streets Wr Water (rivers) Wb Water (bodies of water) Lm Landmarks Cb City Boundary Mc Minor Civic Division Cy County Other MapInfo layers: Voting District, Native American Lands, Sub-MCD, State level tables (school districts and elevation contours). For example, the MapInfo layer named GAFULTS.TAB contains street-level data for Fulton County, Georgia. 5 Click Open to show the .tab file in the layer list.

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The top of the layer list represents the uppermost layer in this map window. 6 7 Click Up and Down to move 'examplemap' to the bottom and 'Annotations' to the top. Click Close to return to the map view. In a new Actix installation, the map location defaults to 0° longitude, 0° latitude, so you will need to arrange the map view to display the new map. 8 Pan the map viewing area by right-clicking in the map area, then choosing Zoom, Go to Layer and selecting the new map layer. 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. For some detailed layers—like the Street layers—you can control at what degree of magnification they become visible. This helps to minimize map clutter. 10 Right-click on the map window and select Map Layers to display the Layer Control dialog. 11 Select the S1 (street names) layer. 12 Click Display to open the Display Properties dialog. 13 Check Display within Zoom range and enter '0' for Min Zoom and '10' for Max Zoom. 14 Now do the same for the street numbers layer, but set the visible range to 0-3.

9

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Show lines to cells on a map
1 From the map window, click on Layers to open the Layer Control dialog, which should look similar to this:

2 3

Select the appropriate cells layer. Click Lines to open the Lines Configuration dialog.

4

Set the Lines draw mode to 'Selection' and Color lines with to 'PN_1stBestEcIo', check that the Disable box is empty, and click OK, then Yes. Click OK to close the Layer Control dialog.

5

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6

Zoom In on data points near a cell site, and use Select to pick a data point.

A solid line is drawn to the serving cell site, with dotted lines drawn to neighboring cells.

If 'All datapoints' was selected in the Lines Configuration dialog, you would not need to select a data point—all data points would have a line to their neighbor cells. This can be useful in some situations.

Change the size of CDMA cell site sectors
You may want to change the size of cell site sectors as displayed on a map. This is especially useful if you are using multiple cell layers. 1 2 3 From the map window, click on Cell Sites to open the Sites/Cell Properties dialog. Set the Series to be CDMA_Cell. 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. This will be displayed as a 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.

4

5 6

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Modifying event detection threshold values
You can modify threshold values for event detection using the Tools, Display Thresholds command. To modify the value, simply click on the associated number and type in the new value.

Loading large amounts of data
About Network Images
You may need to load a large amount of data, because you have large logfiles, you have a large number of logfiles, or both. To use the Open Logfile command would be timeconsuming, and you might be loading data that you would never actually use in any analysis. The solution in this case is to use the Network Image function. A Network Image is a repository into which you can load data from many files at the same time. However, only a small subset of the available data is loaded. This means less flexibility as you have fewer options with which to examine the data, so you must think about what you want to achieve before proceeding. • • Use a Network Image when there is a well-known, high-level analysis process and large amounts of data. Do not use a Network Image when you need to drill into details or follow a very flexible or complex analysis process.

You can also add data to the Network Image later, but for the data stored within the Network Image to be consistent, the same binning method and time-offset settings must be used. In your Actix Solution there are typically several Network Image templates provided for each mobile phone technology, and you can create and maintain as many individual Network Images as you need, for various analysis purposes. For more information on Network Images, including how to create new templates for Network Images, see the online help.

Performance limitations
Binning - When there are a large number of bins, memory usage increases and load speed deteriorates. Use lowresolution location binning where possible. Logfiles - It is better to use a few large files than many small files. If you have problems with many small files you can load a batch in one worksession, restart your Actix Solution and load another batch. Actix A Solutions Getting Started Analyzing CDMA data 79

Scanner data - Network Images are not suitable for use with large arrays of data, and some scanner uses are not possible.

Create a Network Image
Network Images are created by selecting an appropriate Network Image template file. One or more Network Image templates are provided for each technology available for your license. Advanced users can create new templates using the Network Image template Wizard (for details see the online help). To create a Network Image 1 From the Network Image menu, select Create Network Image to open the Create Network Image dialog: Select a CDMA or CDMA2000 1X Network Image template and click OK. From the Save As dialog, enter a File name and location for the Network Image file and click Save. You may want to share this Network Image file with colleagues, so ensure that you save the file with a sensible name in a suitable location. The Network Image is saved in the specified location with a .dat file extension, and is displayed in the Workspace Explorer panel. At this stage, the Network Image does not contain any data, so the next step is to load it up with data from existing streams or logfiles.

2 3

Load data into a Network Image
There are several ways to load data into an existing Network Image. You can also load data into a Network Image that already contains data. Note that, for the resulting Network Image to contain useful data, all data loaded into the Network Image must use the same binning method and time offset. Data should be binned at a low resolution (for example, 200meter location binning), and avoid message binning as performance will drop significantly. To load data into a Network Image 1 If the required Network Image is not already shown in the Workspace Explorer, from the Network Image menu, select Attach Network Image. Select the appropriate Network Image .dat file and click Open to display the Network Image in the Workspace Explorer.

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2

From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the Network Image and select the appropriate data loading option. Select one or more logfiles from a folder Select a folder and load all logfiles in that folder and all subfolders

Select stream from Workspace Explorer

3

Select the required data loading option, and choose which stream, folder or multiple logfiles to load. When the data has been processed, you should see a message window showing the results for each stream or logfile.

4

Click OK to close the message window.

View data from a Network Image
Data in a Network Image is not as flexible as data in a normal Analyzer stream – for example, you cannot perform these actions on the Network Image data: • • • • Apply filters Create/edit/run new queries Run custom attributes Create superstreams

You can use Maps, Charts, Tables and Workbooks to display Network Image data attributes. To view data from a Network Image 1 If the required Network Image is not already shown in the Workspace Explorer, from the Network Image menu, select Attach Network Image. Select the appropriate Network Image .dat file and click Open to display the Network Image in the Workspace Explorer. From the Workspace Explorer, open up the structure underneath your attached Network Image. Now view the batched Network Image data attributes in the same way as you would for standard data attributes, using maps, charts and so on, by rightclicking on the attributes and selecting options from the pop-up menu.

2 3

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CDMA StateTip
The CDMA StateTip utility provides a synchronized view of Handset and PN Scanner data, allowing for a detailed evaluation of neighbor list and pilot pollution problems. By displaying the state of many different engineering parameters at a given trouble spot, you can best judge how to make changes to correct the problem.

The StateTip provides a simple but powerful window (shown on the right of the above example) that synchronizes with all other active windows.

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CDMA Toolkit
Once you are familiar with the basics of using your Actix Solution, you may like to use the CDMA Toolkit utility. CDMA Toolkit automates key CDMA optimization tasks, and appears within the Actix interface as a task bar on the right of the screen. The Toolkit uses a task-based layout to let you perform these analyses: • • • • Search Window analysis Neighbor List analysis Optimize coverage areas Analyze multi-carrier statistics

Every analysis contains several web-based reports, each of which can be saved and printed out for management use.

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Integrate reverse and forward link data
The reverse link data from the switch or a protocol analyzer can be integrated with the drive-test data. This lets you see how parameters such as EcIo behave at specific mobile locations. In Actix Solutions, this technique of integrating data files is known as 'superstreaming'. 1 2 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. Highlight the uplink data stream. From the attribute picker button on the right, select 'Cell_PN_Primary'. Highlight the downlink data stream.

3 4

5 6

7 8 9

10 From the attribute picker, select 'PN_Primary'. 11 Click OK. The superstream is now generated and appears in the Workspace Explorer. You can view data from the superstream in any of the standard data display windows.

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Queries
Actix Solutions provide a querying interface that lets you construct simple or complex expressions. These expressions extract meaningful performance data, based on user-defined thresholds or the value of other expressions. As an example, you can create a query that returns statistics for a particular event—such as a dropped call—for a given window in time around that event. This is useful when looking for data trends. Queries are created and edited from the Tools menu, Analysis Manager option. You can create these query types: • • • • • • Filter queries Binned queries Histogram queries Statistical queries Crosstab queries Event queries

You can also: • • • Perform logical and arithmetic operators Save queries to a default Workspace Apply filters to queries

Create a filter
This example query is designed to filter poor quality in CDMA data. 1 From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on a data stream and select Filter, then Create a New Filter.

The Filter Wizard opens. 2 Enter 'Poor Quality' as the name of the filter.

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3

Click on the right-arrow of the attribute picker and select CDMA > DownLink Measurements > ForwardFER.

4 5

Set the filter operation to 'Greater than (>)'. Set the threshold to '5'.

6

Click OK to close the Wizard.

Filter the data
You can turn on and off filters from the Workspace Explorer, just by clicking on them from the drop-down menu:

Several default filters are provided to allow you to select the data that is displayed in the Workspace.

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Generate new reports
You may want to create high-level management reports based on your collected data. You can print from map and chart windows, but the Workbook function (using Microsoft Excel™) allows you to collate these views and perform other data analysis functions to produce an integrated, polished report. This task assumes that there is an Excel template created from your Actix Solution that you can use to generate a report. If you do not have a report template, see the online help for details of how to create one. 1 From the Workbook menu, select Open Workbook and select an appropriate Excel template.

2 3

Click Open. Select the data source that you want to view in the workbook report.

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4

Click OK to process and display the data in the workbook.

You can proceed to adapt the workbook, use other Excel tools on the data, and so on.

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4

Analyzing GSM data

The Analyzer interface
After the startup is complete, the application window looks like this:

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 Actix Solution with your preferred layouts.

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Configure network information
Import network information
As well as geographical data, it is also useful to display your network information on a map window. You must have your network information defined in a text file (usually called 'cellrefs', although it can be given any name) before you can import it. You can use the Network Explorer to import, view and edit the cellrefs file. If you manually create a cellrefs file, you must have this as the first line:
;#NetworkData – datafile

If you import the file using the Network Explorer, this line is added automatically. To maximize the benefit your Actix Solution can bring to GSM network analysis, the following parameters should be included in data imported into the tool.
Parameter Site Name Site Number Actix Workspace Name GSM_Site_SiteName GSM_Site ID Purpose Text description of the Site for display on map. Numeric identifier for the Site. Used as the linking column to associate the GSM_Site and GSM_Cell rows. Locates Site icons on map. Locates Site icons on map. Sector-specific ID information useful for display on maps. Orients the sector icons on the map. Governs the radius of the sector 'wedge' icon to reflect the beamwidth of antenna deployed at the sector. Base station power Broadcast control channel. Mobile Network Code Mobile Colour Code Location Area Code Cell ID value Base Station Identity Code, comprising of a concatenation of the NCC and BCC values. Text that specifies which cell layer (for example, by technology, band, purpose or status) that the site belongs to. Used for multiple cell layers.

Latitude Longitude Sector Number

GSM_Site Latitude GSM_Site Longitude GSM_Cell Sector ID Can be 1,2,3, etc, or a combination of site numbers GSM_Cell Azimuth GSM_Cell Beamwith

Azimuth Beamwidth

Base Station Power BCCH MNC MCC LAC CI BSIC Layer type

GSM_Cell EIRP GSM_Cell BCCH GSM_Cell MNC GSM_Cell MCC GSM_Cell LAC GSM_Cell CI GSM_Cell BSIC Layer_type

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To import the network information 1 From the Tools menu, select Network Explorer to open the Network Explorer window. For more information on using the Network Explorer, see the online help. 2 3 4 5 6 7 From the toolbar, click Import and select Import From New Template to open the Import dialog. Select the appropriate network data file. Click Open to display the Custom Import Wizard: Give the Template a meaningful Description. Under Delimiters, check Tab. Under General Settings, enter '1' for Ignore header rows and ';' for Array (list) Separator. If your file has more than one header or uses a different array list separator, set these options accordingly. Click on the Column Settings tab. The Column Settings tab allows you to associate a network parameter with a column of data in the text file. Note that each of the field names has an associated icon: Key fields You must select a field type for this field, but you cannot set a default value. These must be either bound to a particular type or have a default value set. Binding particular field types or setting default values is not strictly necessary for this field.

8

Required fields

Other fields

9

Under the Columns heading, click on a setting for a particular field.

10 Select a column binding from the drop-down list. The Wizard then displays the selected parameter against the appropriate column. 11 Select the appropriate column for Site Name from inside the GSM Site group. Repeat this for the SiteID, Latitude, and Longitude.

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12 For the remaining columns, look for the attribute headers under GSM Cell group. Use the Cell ID column for the GSM Sector ID, and repeat for the Azimuth, Beamwidth, EIRP, BCCH, MNC, MCC, LAC, CI, and BSIC columns. A description of each of these parameters and their use is described in the table at the start of this section. 13 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 Explorer. 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.

Set a network information file
1 From the Tools menu, select Preferences to open the Preferences dialog:

2

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).

3

Click OK to close the Preferences dialog. You will now see a message saying that the new file will take effect with the next workspace created or loaded. You may now want to close and restart your Actix Solution for the change to take effect.

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Manage data
Load data files
1 From the main toolbar, click the Open Logfile button:

This displays the Open dialog. 2 Select an appropriate file. Files of Type defaults to 'All Formats' but you can select a specific file type to look for. This also illustrates the many file formats available for use. The Network Image feature (see later) is more practical than using Open Logfile if you need to analyse many large logfiles

Find and use data in the Workspace Explorer
The Workspace Explorer window is a graphical display of all loaded data or log files and the data structure contained within each file. Loaded files are at the highest level, with devices and other data streams displayed at lower levels. The name of each type of element is shown below. Note that the exact structures and icons used depend on the data file loaded and the group that you are examining.

The exact structures and icons used depend on the data file 1 Click on the symbols to open out and explore the data in your logfile. See how your data relates to the structure shown above.

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In the example below, the file 'edgec1' contains a data stream called 'Tems' (the number is the data stream number within the file, starting from zero). The 'GSM' group contains the 'UpLink Measurements' set, which contains the 'ULDTXUsed' data attribute. However, the only objects that you actually need to recognize are filenames, data streams and data attributes. The logical tree-view layout of the Workspace 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 window—for example, a map, chart, table or spreadsheet—to examine the data in detail. You can examine data streams using the Message Browser tool.

You can also use Find Attribute from the Tools menu to locate a particular attribute. See the online help for more details. You may also want additional information about a particular data attribute. 2 From the Help menu, select Show Context Help.

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3

button to dock the attribute help window Click the and drag it to a useful position, as shown here:

4

Select a new attribute. Note that the help now provides information on that attribute.

Delete data files
To remove a data file from the Workspace Explorer 1 2 Right-click on the name of the logfile to display the Close Logfile option. Click Close Logfile. The data file is now removed from the Workspace Explorer display.

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View summary data
The Workspace Explorer provides several ways in which you can examine summary or overview information on your loaded data:

Message Browser

Pre-configured reports (by name)

Protocol Stack Browser

Once you have used the summary data views to identify problem areas, you can use the attribute views to examine the data in detail. For more information, see the section View attribute data.

GSM pre-configured reports
Your Actix Solution provides a set of pre-configured reports, each concentrating on a particular type of network analysis. These 'application packs' distil advanced analysis techniques into simple, comprehensive spreadsheet reports, ready for immediate use by staff of all levels of experience. The application packs are listed under the Analysis menu– which ones actually appear depend on the type of data file loaded. Note that if you do not have a loaded data file, the Analysis menu option will be grayed-out. A description of the reports contained within each application pack is provided in the online help. To use an application pack 1 Ensure that you have a data file loaded and that a valid CellRefs file has been set.

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2

From the Analysis menu, select an application pack (in this example, 'DT Design Validation and Quick Analysis'). Once you select an application pack, this window opens:

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.

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4

Double-click on a report icon to open the report window:

This will report on all data selected in the upper treeview panel. 5 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.

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The Message Browser
The Message Browser differs from the previous data windows in that it only appears as a pop-up menu option at the data stream level in the Workspace Explorer. • From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the 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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The Protocol Stack Browser
The Protocol Stack Browser only appears as a pop-up menu option at the data stream level in the Workspace Explorer. 1 From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the data stream and select Protocol Stack Browser.

2

Now select the required browser view. Each view displays messaging and information appropriate to that view. The example shown here is the GSM Layer 3 Signalling view.

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View attribute data
From the Workspace Explorer, you can right-click any data attribute to display a suitable pop-up menu of options:

Select one of the display methods to open the appropriate data display window.

View data in a Map
1 Use the pop-up menu to display the data attribute 'ServRxLevFull' in a map window.

2

Click on the Pan button.

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3 4 5

Click and drag the data around the map window. Experiment with the Zoom buttons. In the Workspace Explorer, open up the 'Event Data' set and drag the 'EventCallCompleted' event onto the map, which should look similar to this:

Adding various events to the mapped data can help you see where problems are occurring. 6 Drag another data attribute onto the map. You can also change the size, symbol or color of the data, apply offsets to an attribute or merge attributes for a multidimensional display. See the online help for further details. The map legend defines histogram ranges for charts. 7 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 section 'Configure your Solution'.

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Replay the data
With a drive test file, you may want to recreate the drive test by 'playing' through the data file from beginning to end. You can do this using the Replay feature. To open the Replay control, from the main menu, select Tools, then Display Replay.

View data in a Form
While examining data on a map, you can also view data attributes for the same data point by using the Forms tool. 1 From the View menu, select Forms and then an appropriate Form name (from the Workspace Explorer, you can also right-click on the stream name and select Display Form followed by the form name). In the map window, Select a data point.

2

The Form window now displays a variety of attributes based on the data point you selected, which should look similar to this:

See the online help for details on how to create your own forms.

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View data in a Chart
1 Use the pop-up menu to display the data attribute 'ServRxLevFull' in a chart window.

You can display more than one attribute on the same chart. 2 Select and drag the data attribute 'ServRxQualFull' from the Workspace Explorer window onto the existing chart.

You can also zoom into selected areas of the chart by defining a frame for the zoom.

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3

On the chart, click the upper left corner of the zooming rectangle, and drag down to the lower right extent of the rectangle.

4

Release the mouse button to complete the zoom action:

Note that the zoom only operates in the X-axis, not in the Y-axis. 5 6 Now return the chart its original state by dragging a box, but this time up and to the right. Use the right mouse button to scroll and pan around the chart window.

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Although you can scroll the X-axis for all attributes on the chart, you can only pan the Y-axis for the last attribute to be displayed on the chart.

View data in a Table
Tables let you examine the numeric series, histogram and statistical data for the selected attribute. • From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the data attribute 'DownLink Measurements > ServRxLevIdle' and select Display on Table to open the Table.

•

Experiment with the other tabs in the window.

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View data in a Workbook
Workbooks let you examine the data for the selected attribute within a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. • From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on a data attribute and select Display on Workbook to open the spreadsheet. See the section Generate New Reports to see how to create consistent Excel workbook reports.

•

About synchronized data windows
The data in each of these windows is synchronized, so that when displaying the same data attribute in a map, chart or table, if you select a data point in one window, all related map, chart or table windows also highlight the data point. You should have a map and a chart window open, both displaying the ServRxLevFull data attribute. 1 From the map window, click on Select.

Note the other toolbar buttons for selecting data points. 2 Now click on a data point on the map. You should see that the relevant parts of the map and the chart look as shown below, with a line appearing at the equivalent time on the chart:

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Configure your Solution
Map backgrounds and layers
In the earlier example that looked at displaying data in a map window, there was no background map image to put the data into context. This section shows you how to add a background and arrange the layers within a map window. 1 2 Display a data attribute in a map window. From the map window, click Layers to open the Layer Control dialog.

Making a checkmark in a layer's box controls: if the layer is visible if objects on it can be selected if the layer can be annotated (unchecking this 'locks' the Annotations layer from having any further annotations added)

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3

In the Layers box, click Add.

4

From the Open Layer dialog, select one or more MapInfo Map (.tab) files. 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 R Railroads H Highways S Streets wr Water (rivers) wb Water (bodies of water) lm Landmarks cb City Boundary mc Minor Civic Division cy County Other MapInfo layers: Voting District, Native American Lands, Sub-MCD, State level tables (school districts and elevation contours). For example, the MapInfo layer named GAFULTS.TAB contains street-level data for Fulton County, Georgia.

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5

Click Open to display the new map layer in the Layer Control dialog.

The top of the layer list represents the uppermost layer in this map window. 6 7 Click Up and Down to move the new 'example' layer to the bottom and 'Annotations' to the top. Click Close to return to the map view. In a new installation, the map location defaults to 0° longitude, 0° latitude, so you will need to arrange the map view to display the new map. 8 Pan the map viewing area by right-clicking in the map area, then choosing Zoom, Go to Layer and selecting the new map layer. 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. For some detailed layers, you can control at what degree of magnification they become visible. This helps to minimize map clutter. 10 Right-click on the map window and select Map Layers to display the Layer Control dialog. 11 Select a detailed layer—for example, street names. 12 Click Display to open the Display Properties dialog. 13 Check Display within Zoom range and enter '0' for Min Zoom and '10' for Max Zoom.

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Change the size of GSM cell site sectors
You may want to change the size of cell site sectors as displayed on a map. This is especially useful if you are using multiple cell layers. 1 2 3 From the map window, click on Cell Sites to open the Sites/Cell Properties dialog. Set the Series to be GSM_Cell. Set the Cell Size to be an attribute shared by all related cell sites, such as Layer_type (recommended if available from your cellrefs file) or MCC, and click OK. This will be displayed as a 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.

4

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Show lines to cells on a map
1 From the map window, click on Layers to open the Layer Control dialog, which should look similar to this:

2

Select the appropriate cells layer.

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3

Click Lines to open the Lines Configuration dialog.

4

As shown above, set the Lines draw mode to 'Selection', Color lines with to 'ServBCCH', check that the Disable box is empty, and click OK, then Yes. Close the Layer Control dialog. Zoom In on data points near a cell site, and use Select to pick a data point. A solid line is drawn to the serving cell site, with dotted lines drawn to neighboring cells.

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If 'All datapoints' was selected in the Line layer properties dialog, you would not need to select a data point—all data points would have a line to their neighbor cells. This can be useful in some situations.

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Modifying event detection threshold values
You can modify threshold values for event detection using the Tools, Display Thresholds command. To modify the value, simply click on the associated number and type in the new value.

Loading large amounts of data
About Network Images
You may need to load a large amount of data, because you have large logfiles, you have a large number of logfiles, or both. To use the Open Logfile command would be timeconsuming, and you might be loading data that you would never actually use in any analysis. The solution in this case is to use the Network Image function. A Network Image is a repository into which you can load data from many files at the same time. However, only a small subset of the available data is loaded. This means less flexibility as you have fewer options with which to examine the data, so you must think about what you want to achieve before proceeding. • • Use a Network Image when there is a well-known, high-level analysis process and large amounts of data. Do not use a Network Image when you need to drill into details or follow a very flexible or complex analysis process.

You can also add data to the Network Image later, but for the data stored within the Network Image to be consistent, the same binning method and time-offset settings must be used. In your Actix Solution there are typically several Network Image templates provided for each mobile phone technology, and you can create and maintain as many individual Network Images as you need, for various analysis purposes. For more information on Network Images, including how to create new templates for Network Images, see the online help.

Performance limitations
Binning - When there are a large number of bins, memory usage increases and load speed deteriorates. Use lowresolution location binning where possible. Logfiles - It is better to use a few large files than many small files. If you have problems with many small files you can load a batch in one worksession, restart your Actix Solution and load another batch. Actix A Solutions Getting Started Analyzing GSM data 113

Scanner data - Network Images are not suitable for use with large arrays of data, and some scanner uses are not possible.

Create a Network Image
Network Images are created by selecting an appropriate Network Image template file. One or more Network Image templates are provided for each technology available for your license. Advanced users can create new templates using the Network Image template Wizard (for details see the online help). To create a Network Image 1 From the Network Image menu, select Create Network Image to open the Create Network Image dialog. Select a GSM Network Image template and click OK. From the Save As dialog, enter a File name and location for the Network Image file and click Save. You may want to share this Network Image file with colleagues, so ensure that you save the file with a sensible name in a suitable location. The Network Image is saved in the specified location with a .dat file extension, and is displayed in the Workspace Explorer panel: At this stage, the Network Image does not contain any data, so the next step is to load it up with data from existing streams or logfiles.

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Load data into a Network Image
There are several ways to load data into an existing Network Image. You can also load data into a Network Image that already contains data. Note that, for the resulting Network Image to contain useful data, all data loaded into the Network Image must use the same binning method and time offset. Data should be binned at a low resolution (for example, 200meter location binning), and avoid message binning as performance will drop significantly. To load data into a Network Image 1 If the required Network Image is not already shown in the Workspace Explorer, from the Network Image menu, select Attach Network Image. Select the appropriate Network Image .dat file and click Open to display the Network Image in the Workspace Explorer.

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2

From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the Network Image and select the appropriate data loading option. Select one or more logfiles from a folder Select a folder and load all logfiles in that folder and all subfolders

Select stream from Workspace Explorer

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Select the required data loading option, and choose which stream, folder or multiple logfiles to load. When the data has been processed, you should see a message window showing the results for each stream or logfile.

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Click OK to close the message window.

View data from a Network Image
Data in a Network Image is not as flexible as data in a normal Analyzer stream – for example, you cannot perform these actions on the Network Image data: • • • • Apply filters Create/edit/run new queries Run custom attributes Create superstreams

You can use Maps, Charts, Tables and Workbooks to display Network Image data attributes. To view data from a Network Image 1 If the required Network Image is not already shown in the Workspace Explorer, from the Network Image menu, select Attach Network Image. Select the appropriate Network Image .dat file and click Open to display the Network Image in the Workspace Explorer. From the Workspace Explorer, open up the structure underneath your attached Network Image. Now view the batched Network Image data attributes in the same way as you would for standard data attributes, using maps, charts and so on, by rightclicking on the attributes and selecting options from the pop-up menu.

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Integrate uplink and downlink data
The reverse link data from the switch or a protocol analyzer can be integrated with the drive-test data. This lets you see how parameters such as ULRxQual behave at specific mobile locations. In Actix Solutions, this technique of integrating data files is known as 'superstreaming'. 1 2 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. Highlight the uplink data stream. From the attribute picker button on the right, select 'ServRxLevFull'. Highlight the downlink data stream.

3 4

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7 8 9

10 From the attribute picker, select 'ServRxLevFull'. 11 Click OK. The superstream is now generated and appears in the Workspace Explorer. You can view data from the superstream in any of the standard data display windows.

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Queries
Actix Solutions provide a querying interface that lets you construct simple or complex expressions. These expressions extract meaningful performance data, based on user-defined thresholds or the value of other expressions. As an example, you can create a query that returns statistics for a particular event—such as a dropped call—for a given window in time around that event. This is useful when looking for data trends. Queries are created and edited from the Tools menu, Analysis Manager option. You can create these query types: • • • • • • Filter queries Binned queries Histogram queries Statistical queries Crosstab queries Event queries

You can also: • • • Perform logical and arithmetic operators Save queries to a default Workspace Apply filters to queries

Create a filter
This example query is designed to filter poor quality in GSM data. 1 From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on a data stream and select Filter, then Create a New Filter.

The Filter Wizard opens. 2 Enter 'Poor Quality' as the name of the filter.

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3

Click on the right-arrow of the attribute picker and select 'GSM > DownLink Measurements > ServRxQual'. Set the filter operation to 'Greater than or equal to (>=)'. Set the threshold to '4'.

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Click OK to close the Wizard.

Filter the data
You can turn on and off filters from the Workspace Explorer, just by clicking on them from the drop-down menu:

Several default filters are provided to allow you to select the data that is displayed in the Workspace.

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Generate new reports
You may want to create high-level management reports based on your collected data. You can print from map and chart windows, but the Workbook function (using Microsoft Excel™) allows you to collate these views and perform other data analysis functions to produce an integrated, polished report. This task assumes that there is an Excel template created from your Actix Solution that you can use to generate a report. If you do not have a report template, see the online help for details of how to create one. 1 2 3 From the Workbook menu, select Open Workbook and select an appropriate Microsoft Excel template. Click Open. Select the data source that you want to view in the workbook report.

4

Click OK to process and display the data in the workbook. You can proceed to adapt the workbook, use other Excel tools on the data, and so on.

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5

Analyzing A and Abis data
Before reading this chapter, read the chapter Analyzing GSM Data to gain familiarity with the Analyzer interface and its tools. There are three main ways you can use your Actix Solution for PCM Link data analysis: • • • Using Actix Scenarios Using user-defined analyses Developing user-defined analyses

The first usage model is explained below. For information on developing and using your own analyses for PCM Link data, see the online help. Using Actix Scenarios This is the standard method for PCM Link analysis, and follows this general pattern: 1 2 3 Start your Actix Solution. Do not load a logfile yet. Choose one or more pre-generated Scenarios. For details, see the section 'Choose A or Abis Scenarios'. Load the logfile to be examined. The default Load Mode is 'Minimal Load', which avoids loading unnecessary data from the logfile and reduces the load time. Select an application pack, narrow the data selection and display the results in a report. Use the tools available in your Actix Solution to identify problem areas in the logfile. These tools are described in Analyzing GSM data and the online help.

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Choose A or Abis Scenarios
Scenarios are collections of analyses that can be performed on any PCM Link data as it is loaded. You select the Scenarios you need, depending on the tasks you want to perform. However, the more Scenarios that are selected, the longer the data takes to load, so only the basic analysis sets are selected by default. Note that you must have at least one A or Abis (as appropriate) Scenario selected for A and Abis analysis features to work correctly. For more information on Scenarios, see the online help. To choose a Scenario 1 2 From the Tools menu, select Choose Scenario to open the Attach Load Time Queries dialog. Select one or more appropriate Scenarios and click OK.

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The Statistics Explorer
The Statistics Explorer is a powerful data-manipulation tool that lets you rapidly pinpoint problems by displaying statistical data from Crosstab and Event queries. For other features of the Statistics Explorer, see the online help. To use the Statistics Explorer 1 2 3 4 5 From the Tools menu, select Choose Scenario to open the Attach Load Time Queries dialog. Select 'Abis Call Analysis'. Open the Abis file. From the View menu, select Statistics Explorer. From the Queries pane on the left of the Statistics Explorer, select Analyze Connection Errors or Analyze Handover Failures. Note that queries beginning with 'Analyze' can be used for call analysis. The processed data is now displayed in the Statistics Explorer.

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Abis Call Analysis
Once you have displayed the data for an Abis file within the Statistics Explorer, you can extract the individual calls for detailed optimization. You do this by creating a call analysis stream of selected data to view from the Workspace Explorer. 1 2 In the Statistics Explorer, select a row of data. Click Analyze. The stream of the selected data appears in the Workspace Explorer:

The data in this new stream can now be analyzed using maps, charts, tables etc.

Filter the Workspace Explorer
Once you have displayed the data for an Abis file within the Statistics Explorer, you can reduce the quantity of data displayed in the Workspace Explorer. 1 2 In the Statistics Explorer, select a row of data. Click Filter. The Workspace Explorer now only shows data relating to the row selected in the Statistics Explorer. 3 When you have finished examining the filtered data, click Filter again to switch off the filtering.

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Superstream PCM Link/Drive Test data
PCM data—for example from A, Abis or Gb logfiles—can be combined with drive test data collected at the same time. This means that the GPS coordinates in the drive test data can be matched to the uplink information, so the uplink information (or the difference between uplink and downlink information) can then be plotted on a map. To Superstream the data 1 2 3 4 From the Tools menu, select Choose Scenario to open the Attach Load Time Queries dialog. Select 'Abis Call Analysis'. Open the PC Link file and the drive test file to be superstreamed. From the Tools menu, select Superstream PCMLink/DT to open the PCM-Link/Drive Test Superstreaming dialog. Select the appropriate Drive Test stream(s) and PCMLink stream(s). Select the appropriate Search Method settings for synchronizing the data streams. Click OK to begin the superstreaming process. When the process is complete, the superstream is displayed in the Workspace Explorer, and the normal data displays (maps, charts, tables, analysis reports) may be used to examine the data.

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GSM A and Abis pre-configured reports
See the section GSM Application Packs for information on how to use application packs. A data file must be loaded and a valid CellRefs file must have been set. Note that, as not all Scenarios are checked by default, you must select a Scenario under Tools | Choose Scenario for the related application pack option to be displayed under the Analysis menu.

GSM A application packs
Because an A interface log file carries data for an entire BSC, it is useful for certain statistical analysis. It provides a broader scope than Drive Test or Abis data, with more detail than can be found in the OMC.

A General Analysis
By default, the General Analysis Application Pack is loaded when you open an A interface logfile. Launched from the Analysis menu, General Analysis contains a variety of statistical reports that evaluate how the network is being used. Each report can be run against the entire file, a single cell or a selection of cells. Location Update Count, percentage and breakdown of Location Update messages, types and reject causes. Clear Cause Cause Code count and percentage for Clear Command messages. Useful when trying to identify the cause of dropped calls. Services Requested Count, percentage and breakdown. Channel Assignment Assignment message count and percentage, Assignment Failure breakdown. Channel Assignment by Cell Assignment message count and percentage for each cell. Connection Analysis Count and percentage of SCCP Connection messages. Breakdowns of SCCP Services Requested and CSSP Connection Refused Causes.

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Connection Analysis by Cell Connection statistics for each cell.

A Subscriber Analysis
Subscriber Analysis takes advantage of useful information encoded in the IMSI and EIMI code. This information is automatically extracted and new attributes are created in the Workspace Explorer tree when the file is opened with Full Load. For example, from the IMEI handset details such as the TAC (Type Approval Code) can be obtained. The IMSI contains the subscriber’s MCC and NCC (Country and Network codes). For maximum performance, log files can be opened in Minimum Load with specific queries enabled to collect this information. Before loading the log file, select Tools | Choose Scenario and select Subscriber Analysis. This enables queries and reports in the Subscriber Analysis application pack. Handset Types Breakdown of mobile handsets based on Type Approval Code. Channel Type Speech and Data channel type counts and percentages. Classmark Classmark count, phase and graph. Roaming by Country Lists the count and proportion of Roaming Subscribers from each country in a table and graph. Roaming by Network Lists the count and proportion of Roaming Subscribers from each network in a table and graph.

A Handover Analysis
This application pack provides statistical analysis of both Intra and Inter BSC handovers. It is useful for identifying handover problems as well as analysis of LAC boundaries. Handover Cause HO Performed and HO Required-Attempt cause counts, percentages and graph. Handover Reject and Fail Cause Counts, percentages and graph for HO Request Reject and Failure. BSS Handover Cause by Cell Intra-BSC handover statistics for each cell.

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SSS Handover Cause by Cell Inter-BSC handover statistics for each cell. Handover Messages by Cell Inter-BSC outgoing and incoming statistics for each cell. Useful for finding cells with a high handover failure rate. BSS Handover Matrix Intra-BSC Handovers by Source and Target. This is useful for LAC boundary analysis. Initially the report shows handovers in tabular view. It is also possible to open the Excel report and examine a subset of source and target cells in pivot table view by clicking Show Excel Report. SSS Handover Matrix Inter-BSC Handovers by Source and Target.

GSM Abis application packs
The Abis Interface is a good place to collect high-resolution data as perceived by real customers. Compared to Drive Test, one advantage is that it captures uplink measurements as well as downlink. It is better for statistical analysis because it measures the network as experienced by real customers, rather than by a single drive test route. The main disadvantage is the absence of GPS location information.

Abis Quick Analysis
By default, the Quick Analysis application pack is enabled when you load an Abis log file. It contains a selection of the most commonly used reports from other application packs. Traffic Statistics Setup, TCH and SDCCH statistics by TRX. Quality Distribution Counts of uplink and downlink quality, and graphs of downlink quality vs downlink level and uplink quality vs uplink level. Timing Advance and Interference Interference vs timing advance followed by interference definition chart. Handover Statistics Statistics by TRX for incoming, outgoing and intra-cell handovers and directed retries. Connection Failure Statistics for TCH and SDCCH, and cause breakdown.

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Link Balance Distribution Graph showing corrected downlink level – corrected uplink level.

Abis Balance and Sensitivity
A selection of reports for the analysis of Link and Path Balance. System Sensitivity Mean uplink and downlink quality and number of valid points for a range of levels. In a low interference situation this indicates sensitivity of BTS equipment. Link Balance Distribution Graph showing corrected downlink level – corrected uplink level. Link Balance by Timeslot Graphs showing mean link balance by TRX and by timeslot. Link Balance UL vs DL A bubble chart with downlink balance on the x axis and uplink balance on the y axis. Ideally most measurements will form a 45° line. Link Balance by DL Level This report shows mean link balance vs. downlink level. This can help identify balance problems. The number of measurements is also given to indicate the validity of each sample.

Abis Network Design
This application pack is useful for network design validation and troubleshooting quality and interference problems. It contains a number of reports to help pinpoint the severity and location of poor quality measurements. Quality Distribution Basic histogram showing distribution of uplink and downlink quality measurements, as well as uplink and downlink bubble charts. These indicate the number of samples based on bubble size, with level on the x axis and quality on the y axis. Poor Quality Contributors Uplink and downlink bubble charts to help identify the location of quality problems. The bubble size indicates the number of measurements, with level on the x axis, timing advance on the y axis, and quality range indicated by the bubble colour. Level and Interference Interference vs downlink Rx level followed by

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interference definition chart. Interference calculation is based on a combination of level and quality measurements. Timing Advance and Interference Interference vs timing advance followed by interference definition chart. Interference calculation is based on a combination of level and quality measurements.

Abis Traffic Handovers and Failures
This Application Pack contains statistical information to analyze traffic volume and the cause of failures, as well as handovers and handover failures. Traffic Statistics Setup, TCH and SDCCH statistics by TRX. Channel Configuration Breakdown by cell and TRX. Handover Statistics Statistics by TRX for incoming, outgoing and intra-cell handovers and directed retries. Handover Fail Cause Count and breakdown of handover fail causes. Handovers by Target Stats and graph of handovers by BSIC-BCCH. Connection Failure Statistics for TCH and SDCCH, and cause breakdown. Error Indication Cause Cause breakdown for TCH and SDCCH. Handset Performance Breakdown of mobile handset performance statistics based on Type Approval Code.

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6

Analyzing GPRS data
Before reading this chapter, read the chapter on Analyzing GSM Data to gain familiarity with the Analyzer interface and its tools. There are three main ways you can use Gb Link data analysis: • • • Using Actix Scenarios Using user-defined analyses Developing user-defined analyses (see the online help)

The first two ways are explained below: Using Actix Scenarios This is the standard method for Gb Link analysis, and follows this general pattern: 1 2 3 Start your Actix Solution. Do not load a logfile yet. Choose one or more pre-generated Scenarios. For details, see the section 'Choose Gb Scenarios'. Load the logfile to be examined. The default Load Mode is 'Minimal Load', which avoids loading unnecessary data from the logfile and reduces the load time. Select an application pack, narrow the data selection and display the results in a report. Use the tools in your Actix Solution to identify problem areas in the logfile. These tools are described in Analyzing GSM data and the online help.

4 5

Using user-defined analyses These are non-standard analysis methods produced by advanced users for co-workers. 1 2 3 Start your Actix Solution. Do not load a logfile yet. Import the appropriate Load Time Queries from the Analysis Manager. Load the logfile to be examined. The default Load Mode is 'Minimal Load', which avoids loading

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unnecessary data from the logfile and reduces the load time. 4 Use custom reports to analyze data.

Choose Gb Scenarios
Scenarios are collections of analyses that can be performed on any PCM Link data as it is loaded. You select the Scenarios you need, depending on the tasks you want to perform. However, the more Scenarios that are selected, the longer the data takes to load, so only the basic analysis sets are selected by default. Note that you must have at least one Gb Scenario selected for Gb analysis features to work correctly. For more information on Scenarios, see the online help. To choose a Scenario 1 From the Tools menu, select Choose Scenario to open this dialog:

2

Select one or more appropriate Scenarios and click OK.

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The Protocol Stack Browser
The Protocol Stack Browser allows you to examine Gb messaging by protocol. To start the Protocol Stack Browser 1 2 From the Tools menu, select Preferences and ensure that, under PCM Link, Load Mode is set to 'Full'. From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the stream name and select Display Protocol Stack Browser.

The Protocol Stack Browser window opens:

The upper panel shows a formatted breakdown of every message, while the bottom panel shows the full decode for the currently selected message. 132 Analyzing GPRS data Actix A Solutions Getting Started

You can also use the Sync Msgs button to synchronize the display with chart windows and with the Message Browser window to provide a better understanding of the data. If you do not intend to continue using the Protocol Stack Browser, then from the Tools menu, select Preferences, and ensure that under PCM Link, Load Mode is set to 'Minimal'.

GPRS pre-configured reports
See the section GSM Application Packs for information on how to use application packs. A valid CellRefs file does not need to be set when analyzing Gb data files. Note that, as not all Scenarios are checked by default, you must select a Scenario under Tools | Choose Scenario for the related application pack option to be displayed under the Analysis menu.

GPRS Gb application packs
GPRS Gb Signaling Analysis
Msg Breakdown Can be used as a high-level overview of the messaging used at each protocol layer of the Gb interface. MM Attach Attach count and percentage, breakdowns of cause value, attach type and attach result. MM Detach MOD and MTD detach count and percentage, breakdowns of cause value and detach type. MM RA Update RAU count and percentage, breakdowns of cause value, update type and update result. MM Error Conditions Breaks down the GMM cause values reported in the GMM status messages. SM Error Conditions SM cause value breakdowns for uplink and downlink. SM PDP Context Count, percentage, and cause value breakdowns for MS-initiated and network-initiated activations.

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SM PDP Context Deactivation Count, percentage, and cause value breakdowns for MS-initiated and network-initiated deactivations. Flow Control Statistics BVC and MS Flow Control Statistics including bucket size and leak rates. Discarded LLC-PDU Statistics Shows average LLC frames discarded and Octets deleted. Cell Update Table Shows the GPRS cell update occurrences using the Cell Identity in the uplink messages of the BSSGP protocol layer. Flush Statistics Shows Flush Action and average number of Octets affected.

GPRS Gb Throughput Analysis
TCP Traffic Type Analysis Using the Source and Destination ports from the TCP header, the traffic type for the data packets can be analyzed. UDP Traffic Type Analysis As above but uses the Source and Destination ports from the UDP header.

Examine Gb Load Time Queries
If you have selected one or more Scenarios, the related Load Time Queries are displayed in the Workspace Explorer.

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To display a Load Time Query in the Statistics Explorer 1 From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the appropriate Load Time Query to open the pop-up menu. Select Display the Statistics Explorer.

2

The Statistics Explorer opens with the Load Time Query selected. All other queries are also displayed in the Queries panel, and may be selected as required.

Load Time Queries in each Scenario
Gb Signalling Analysis This Scenario's Load Time Queries are those used in the application pack of the same name. Gb Throughput Analysis The 'Traffic Type' Load Time Queries are those used in the Gb Throughput Analysis application pack, but there are also eight other Load Time Queries containing useful information that can be displayed in the Statistics Explorer. Gb TCP Session Analysis Gb Handset Analysis These last two Scenarios each contain one query. Display one of these queries in the Statistics Explorer, highlight an interesting row and click the Analyze button. In the example below, Gb Handset Analysis has been displayed in the Statistics Explorer. The user has identified a high number of PDP Activation Failures for a particular mobile, and so clicks Analyze.

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This generates a new analysis stream for the mobile in question that can be examined in the Protocol Stack Browser (without needing to set the Load Mode to 'Full') and the Message Browser.

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Analyze GPRS Drive Test data
You can analyze GPRS Drive Test data using charts, queries and so on just like any other drive test data. The data attributes shown below in the box are described in the online help under GPRS Drive Test Analysis.

Map DT files lacking GPS data
Some GPRS Drive Test files do not contain GPS data. If you want to display data on a map, you will need to: 1 2 Create your own GPS data file using your logging tool. Use the Text Import Wizard (File | Import Text File) to import the log file. The coordinate format defaults to 'WGS84' but you can select any suitable format. Superstream the imported file with the GPRS Drive Test file (as described in the section Superstream PCM Link/Drive Test data in the chapter Analyzing A and Abis data). You can now plot the superstreamed data attributes on a map.

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7

Analyzing IS-136 data

The Analyzer interface
After the startup is complete, the Actix application window looks like this:

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 Actix Solution with your preferred layouts.

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Configure network information
Import network information
As well as geographical data, it is also useful to display your network information on a map window. You must have your network information defined in a text file (usually called 'cellrefs', although it can be given any name) before you can import it. You can use the Network Explorer to import, view and edit the cellrefs file. If you manually create a cellrefs file, you must have this as the first line:
;#NetworkData – datafile

If you import the file using the Network Explorer, this line is added automatically. To maximize the benefit for network analysis, the following parameters should be included in the import:
Parameter Site Name Site Number Latitude Longitude Sector Number Actix Workspace Name IS-54/IS-136_Site_SiteName IS-54/IS-136_SiteID IS-54/IS-136_SiteLatitude IS-54/IS-136_SiteLongitude IS-54/IS-136_Cell Sector ID Can 1,2,3, etc, or a combination of site numbers IS-54/IS-136_Cell Azimuth IS-54/IS-136_Cell Beamwith IS-54/IS-136_Cell EIRP IS-54/IS-136_Cell ACCH IS-54/IS-136_Cell Color_Codes Purpose Text description of the Site for display on map. Numeric identifier for the Site. Locates Site icons on map. Locates Site icons on map. Sector-specific information useful for display on maps.

Azimuth Beamwidth Base Station Power ACCH Color Codes

Orients the sector icons on the map. Governs the shape of the sector 'wedge' icon to reflect the beamwidth of antenna deployed at the site. Base station power Analog control channel. A list of color codes (SAT and DVCCs) separated by semicolons. This list is designed to match the entries in the Traffic_Channels field. Used for determining likely serving and neighbor cells. Digital Color Code used to determine lines to serving cells for Analog servers in idle mode. Digital Control Channel Digital Voice Color Code A list of traffic channels separated by semicolons. This list is designed to match the entries in the Color_Codes field. Used for determining likely serving and neighbor cells. Mobile Country Code System Identity Text that specifies which cell layer (for example, by technology, band, purpose or status) that the site belongs to. Used for multiple cell layers.

DCC DCCH DVCC Traffic_Channels

IS-54/IS-136_Cell DCC IS-54/IS-136_Cell DCCH IS-54/IS-136_Cell DVCC IS-54/IS-136_Cell Traffic_Channels

MCC SID Layer type

IS-54/IS-136_Cell MCC IS-54/IS-136_Cell SID Layer_type

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To import the network information 1 From the Tools menu, select Network Explorer to open the Network Explorer window. For more information on using the Network Explorer, see the online help. 2 3 4 5 6 7 From the toolbar, click Import and select Import From New Template to open the Import dialog. Select the appropriate network data file. Click Open to display the Custom Import Wizard. Give the Template a meaningful Description. Under Delimiters, check Tab. Under General Settings, enter '1' for Ignore header rows and ';' for Array (list) Separator. If your file has more than one header or uses a different array list separator, set these options accordingly. Click on the Column Settings tab. The Column Settings tab allows you to associate a network parameter with a column of data in the text file. Note that each of the field names has an associated icon: Key fields You must select a field type for this field, but you cannot set a default value. These must be either bound to a particular type or have a default value set. Binding particular field types or setting default values is not strictly necessary for this field.

8

Required fields

Other fields

9

Under the Columns heading, click on a setting for a particular field.

10 Select a column binding from the drop-down list. The Wizard then displays the selected parameter against the appropriate column. 11 Select the appropriate columns for IS-54/IS-136_Site and SiteName. Repeat this for the SiteID, Latitude, and Longitude.

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12 For the remaining columns, look for the attribute headers under IS-54/IS-136 Cell. Use the Cell ID column for the IS-54/IS-136_Cell Sector ID, Azimuth, Beamwidth, EIRP, ACCH, DCC, Color_Codes, Traffic_Channels, DVCC, DCCH. A description of each of these parameters and their use is described in the table at the start of this section. 13 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 Explorer. 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.

Set a network information file
1 From the Tools menu, select Preferences to open the Preferences dialog:

2

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).

3

Click OK to close the Preferences dialog. You will now see a message saying that the new file will take effect with the next workspace created or loaded. You may now want to close and restart your Actix Solution for the change to take effect.

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Manage data
Load data files
1 From the main toolbar, click the Open Logfile button:

This displays the Open dialog. 2 Select an appropriate file. Files of Type defaults to 'All Formats' but you can select a specific file type to look for. This also illustrates the many file formats available for use with Actix A Solutions. The Network Image feature (see later) is more practical than using Open Logfile if you need to analyse many large logfiles

Find and use data in the Workspace Explorer
The Workspace Explorer window is a graphical display of all loaded data or log files and the data structure contained within each file. Loaded files are at the highest level, with devices and other data streams displayed at lower levels. The name of each type of element is shown below. Note that the exact structures and icons used depend on the data file loaded and the group that you are examining.

The exact structures and icons used depend on the data file 1 Click on the symbols to open out and explore the data in your logfile. See how your data relates to the structure shown above.

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In the example below, the file '0408_001' contains a data stream called 'Tems IS136 1900 (0)' (the number is the data stream number within the file, starting from zero). The 'IS-136' group contains the 'Dedicated Radio Link' set, which contains the 'FACCH_CurChannel' data attribute. However, the only objects that you actually need to recognize are filenames, data streams and data attributes. The logical tree-view layout of the Workspace 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 window—for example, a map, chart, table or spreadsheet—to examine the data in detail. You can examine data streams using the Message Browser tool.

You can also use Find Attribute from the Tools menu to locate a particular attribute. See the online help for more details. You may also want additional information about a particular data attribute. 2 3 Select 'DVCC'. From the Help menu, select Show Context Help.

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4

Click the button to dock the attribute help window and drag it to a useful position, as shown here:

5

Select a new attribute. Note that the help now provides information on that attribute.

Delete data files
To remove a data file from the Workspace Explorer 1 2 Right-click on the name of the logfile to display the Close Logfile option. Click Close Logfile. The data file is now removed from the Workspace Explorer display.

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View summary data
The Workspace Explorer provides several ways in which you can examine summary or overview information on your loaded data:

Message Browser

Pre-configured reports (by name)

Protocol Stack Browser

Once you have used the summary data views to identify problem areas, you can use the attribute views to examine the data in detail. For more information, see the section View attribute data.

TDMA pre-configured reports
Your Actix Solution provides a set of pre-configured reports, each concentrating on a particular type of network analysis. These 'application packs' distil advanced analysis techniques into simple, comprehensive spreadsheet reports, ready for immediate use by staff of all levels of experience. The application packs are listed under the Analysis menu– which ones actually appear depend on the type of data file loaded. Note that if you do not have a loaded data file, the Analysis menu option will be grayed-out. You must also have set a valid CellRefs file. A description of the reports contained within each application pack is provided in the online help.

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To use an application pack 1 2 Ensure that you have a data file loaded and a cellrefs file selected. From the Analysis menu, select Summary Reports. Once you select an application pack, the application pack window opens. The top pane shows a tree-view of the network structure against various statistics produced by the application pack.

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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.

4

Double-click on a report icon to open the report :

This will report on all data selected in the upper treeview panel. 5 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.

Reset thresholds for a new analysis
A number of the application pack reports use Custom Attributes. To change the thresholds for a new analysis, you need to re-run this Custom Attribute directly from the Custom Attribute Manager: • Distance_Input

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The Message Browser
The Message Browser differs from the previous data windows in that it only appears as a pop-up menu option at the data stream level in the Workspace Explorer. • From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the 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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The Protocol Stack Browser
The Protocol Stack Browser only appears as a pop-up menu option at the data stream level in the Workspace Explorer. 1 From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the data stream and select Protocol Stack Browser.

2

Now select the required browser view. Each view displays messaging and information appropriate to that view. The example shown here is the UMTS UTRAN Protocol Signaling view.

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View attribute data
From the Workspace Explorer, you can right-click any data attribute to display a suitable pop-up menu of options:

Select one of the display methods to open the appropriate data display window.

View data in a Map
1 Use the pop-up menu to display the data attribute 'FACCH_CurRSSI' in a map window.

2 3 4

Click on the Pan button. Click and drag the data around the map window. Experiment with the Zoom buttons.

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5

In the Workspace Explorer, open up the 'Event Data' set and drag the 'Call_Dropped' event onto the map, which should look similar to this:

(Here there is only one dropped call, as the drive-test is completed.) Adding various events to the mapped data can help you see where problems are occurring. 6 Drag another data attribute onto the map. You can also change the size, symbol or color of the data, apply offsets to an attribute or merge attributes for a multidimensional display. See the online help for further details. The map legend defines histogram ranges for charts. 7 Click on one of the check boxes in the Map Legend pane to hide the related attribute data on the map. Click on it again to redisplay the data.

To find out how to add background geographical and network information to map windows, see the section 'Configure your Solution'.

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Replay the data
With a drive test file, you may want to recreate the drive test by 'playing' through the data file from beginning to end. You can do this using the Replay feature. To open the Replay control, from the main menu, select Tools, then Display Replay.

View data in a Form
While examining data on a map, you can also view data attributes for the same data point by using the Forms tool. 1 From the View menu, select Forms and select an appropriate Form (or, from the Workspace Explorer, right-click on a stream name, select Display Form and then the form name). In the map window, click Select point. and select a data

2

The Forms window now displays a variety of attributes based on the data point you selected:

Note that in this example, an appropriate cellrefs file has not been set, so no Cell or Sector ID information is displayed.

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Advanced users can use the Design Mode of this feature to create new forms for IS-136 and other technologies. See the online help for details.

View data in a Chart
1 Use the pop-up menu to display the data attribute 'FACCH_CurRSSI' in a chart window.

You can display more than one attribute on the same chart. 2 Select and drag the data attribute 'DedicatedCell_BER' from the Workspace Explorer window onto the existing chart.

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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.

4

Release the mouse button to complete the zoom action:

Note that the zoom only operates in the X-axis, not in the Y-axis. 5 6 Now return the chart its original state by dragging a box, but this time up and to the right. Use the right mouse button to scroll and pan around the chart window.

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Although you can scroll the X-axis for all attributes on the chart, you can only pan the Y-axis for the last attribute to be displayed on the chart.

View data in a Table
Tables let you examine the numeric series, histogram and statistical data for the selected attribute. • From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the data attribute 'DownLink Measurements > FACCH_CurBER_Level' and select Display on Table.

This opens the Table window.

•

Experiment with the other tabs in the window.

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View data in a Workbook
Workbooks let you examine the data for the selected attribute within a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. • From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on a data attribute and select Display on Workbook to open the spreadsheet. See the section Generate New Reports to see how to create consistent Excel workbook reports.

•

About synchronized data windows
The data in each of these windows is synchronized, so that when displaying the same data attribute in a map, chart or table, if you select a data point in one window, all related map, chart or table windows also highlight the data point. You should have a map and a chart window open, both displaying the 'FACCH_CurRSSI' data attribute. 1 From the map window, click on Select. Note the other toolbar buttons for selecting data points. 2 Now click on a data point on the map. You should see that the relevant parts of the map and the chart look as shown below, with a line appearing at the equivalent 'FACCH_CurRSSI' point on the chart:

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Configure your Solution
Map backgrounds and layers
In the earlier example that looked at displaying data in a map window, there was no background map image to put the data into context. This section shows you how to add a background and arrange the layers within a map window. 1 2 Display a data attribute in a map window. From the map window, click Layers to open the Layer Control dialog.

Making a checkmark in a layer's box controls: if the layer is visible if objects on it can be selected if the layer can be annotated (unchecking this 'locks' the Annotations layer from having any further annotations added) 3 4 In the Layers box, click Add. From the Open Layer dialog, select one or more MapInfo Map (.tab) files. 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

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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 R Railroads H Highways S Streets wr Water (rivers) wb Water (bodies of water) lm Landmarks cb City Boundary mc Minor Civic Division cy County Other MapInfo layers: Voting District, Native American Lands, Sub-MCD, State level tables (school districts and elevation contours). For example, the MapInfo layer named GAFULTS.TAB contains street-level data for Fulton County, Georgia. 5 Click Open to display the new map layer(s) in the Layer Control dialog. The top of the layer list represents the uppermost layer in this map window. 6 Click Up and Down to move the new 'examplemap' layer to the bottom and 'Annotations' to the top.

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7

Click Close to return to the map view. In a new installation, the map location defaults to 0° longitude, 0° latitude, so you will need to arrange the map view to display the new map.

8

Pan the map viewing area by right-clicking in the map area, then choosing Zoom, Go to Layer and selecting the new map layer. 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. For some detailed layers, you can control at what degree of magnification they become visible. This helps to minimize map clutter.

9

10 Right-click on the map window and select Map Layers to display the Layer Control dialog. 11 Select a detailed layer—for example, S1 (street names). 12 Click Display to open the Display Properties dialog. 13 Check Display within Zoom range and enter '0' for Min Zoom and '10' for Max Zoom. 14 Now do the same for the street numbers map layer, entering a zoom range of 0-3.

Display network information
To display network information on a map window, you must have your network information defined in a text file (usually called 'cellrefs.txt', although it can be given any name) before you can import it. You can use the Network Explorer to view and edit the cellrefs file. For details, refer to the online help. You should see graphics for each cell site on the map, but they may be too big or two small. To alter the size of the cell symbols You may want to change the size of cell site sectors as displayed on a map. This is especially useful if you are using multiple cell layers. 1 2 From the map window, click on Cell Sites to open the Sites/Cell Properties dialog. Set the Series to be <tech>_Cell.

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3

Set the Cell Size to be an attribute shared by all related cell sites, such as Layer_type (recommended if available from your cellrefs file) or MCC, and click OK. This will be displayed as a 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.

4

5 6

Show lines to cells on a map
1 From the map window, click on Layers to open the Layer Control dialog, which should look similar to this:

2

Select the appropriate cell layer.

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3

Click Lines to open the Lines Configuration dialog.

4

Set the Lines draw mode to 'Selection' and Color lines with to 'FACCH_CurChannel', and click OK, then Yes. Close the Layer Control dialog. Zoom In on data points near a cell site, and use Select to pick a data point. A solid line is drawn to the serving cell site, with dotted lines drawn to neighboring cells.

5 6

If 'All datapoints' was selected in the Line layer properties dialog, you would not need to select a data point—all data points would have a line to their neighbor cells. This can be useful in some situations.

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Loading large amounts of data
About Network Images
You may need to load a large amount of data, because you have large logfiles, you have a large number of logfiles, or both. To use the Open Logfile command would be timeconsuming, and you might be loading data that you would never actually use in any analysis. The solution in this case is to use the Network Image function. A Network Image is a repository into which you can load data from many files at the same time. However, only a small subset of the available data is loaded. This means less flexibility as you have fewer options with which to examine the data, so you must think about what you want to achieve before proceeding. • • Use a Network Image when there is a well-known, high-level analysis process and large amounts of data. Do not use a Network Image when you need to drill into details or follow a very flexible or complex analysis process.

You can also add data to the Network Image later, but for the data stored within the Network Image to be consistent, the same binning method and time-offset settings must be used. In your Actix Solution there are typically several Network Image templates provided for each mobile phone technology, and you can create and maintain as many individual Network Images as you need, for various analysis purposes. For more information on Network Images, including how to create new templates for Network Images, see the online help.

Performance limitations
Binning - When there are a large number of bins, memory usage increases and load speed deteriorates. Use lowresolution location binning where possible. Logfiles - It is better to use a few large files than many small files. If you have problems with many small files you can load a batch in one worksession, restart your Actix Solution and load another batch. Scanner data - Network Images are not suitable for use with large arrays of data, and some scanner uses are not possible.

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Create a Network Image
Network Images are created by selecting an appropriate Network Image template file. One or more Network Image templates are provided for each technology available for your license. Advanced users can create new templates using the Network Image template Wizard (for details see the online help). To create a Network Image 1 From the Network Image menu, select Create Network Image to open the Create Network Image dialog. Select an IS-136 Network Image template and click OK. From the Save As dialog, enter a File name and location for the Network Image file and click Save. You may want to share this Network Image file with colleagues, so ensure that you save the file with a sensible name in a suitable location. The Network Image is saved in the specified location with a .dat file extension, and is displayed in the Workspace Explorer panel. At this stage, the Network Image does not contain any data, so the next step is to load it up with data from existing streams or logfiles.

2 3

Load data into a Network Image
There are several ways to load data into an existing Network Image. You can also load data into a Network Image that already contains data. Note that, for the resulting Network Image to contain useful data, all data loaded into the Network Image must use the same binning method and time offset. Data should be binned at a low resolution (for example, 200meter location binning), and avoid message binning as performance will drop significantly. To load data into a Network Image 1 If the required Network Image is not already shown in the Workspace Explorer, from the Network Image menu, select Attach Network Image. Select the appropriate Network Image .dat file and click Open to display the Network Image in the Workspace Explorer.

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2

From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the Network Image and select the appropriate data loading option. Select one or more logfiles from a folder Select a folder and load all logfiles in that folder and all subfolders

Select stream from Workspace Explorer

3

Select the required data loading option, and choose which stream, folder or multiple logfiles to load. When the data has been processed, you should see a message window showing the results for each stream or logfile.

4

Click OK to close the message window.

View data from a Network Image
Data in a Network Image is not as flexible as data in a normal Analyzer stream – for example, you cannot perform these actions on the Network Image data: • • • • Apply filters Create/edit/run new queries Run custom attributes Create superstreams

You can use Maps, Charts, Tables and Workbooks to display Network Image data attributes. To view data from a Network Image 1 If the required Network Image is not already shown in the Workspace Explorer, from the Network Image menu, select Attach Network Image. Select the appropriate Network Image .dat file and click Open to display the Network Image in the Workspace Explorer. From the Workspace Explorer, open up the structure underneath your attached Network Image. Now view the batched Network Image data attributes in the same way as you would for standard data attributes, using maps, charts and so on, by rightclicking on the attributes and selecting options from the pop-up menu.

2 3

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Integrate uplink and downlink data
The reverse link data from the switch or a protocol analyzer can be integrated with the drive-test data. This lets you see how parameters such as 'DedicatedCell_SignalStrength' behave at specific mobile locations. In Actix Solutions, this technique of integrating data files is known as 'superstreaming'. 1 2 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. Highlight the uplink data stream. From the attribute picker button on the right, select 'DedicatedCell_SignalStrength'. Highlight the downlink data stream.

3 4

5 6

7 8 9

10 From the attribute picker, select 'DedicatedCell_SignalStrength'. 11 Click OK. The superstream is now generated and appears in the Workspace Explorer. You can view data from the superstream in any of the standard data display windows.

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Queries
Your Actix Solution provides a querying interface that lets you construct simple or complex expressions. These expressions extract meaningful performance data, based on user-defined thresholds or the value of other expressions. As an example, you can create a query that returns statistics for a particular event—such as a dropped call—for a given window in time around that event. This is useful when looking for data trends. Queries are created and edited from the Tools menu, Analysis Manager option. You can create these query types: • • • • • • Filter queries Binned queries Histogram queries Statistical queries Crosstab queries Event queries

You can also: • • • Perform logical and arithmetic operators Save queries to a default Workspace Apply filters to queries

Create a filter
This example query is designed to filter poor quality in IS-136 data. 1 From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on a data stream and select Filter, then Create a New Filter.

The Filter Wizard opens.

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2 3 4 5

Enter 'Poor Quality' as the name of the filter. Click on the right-arrow of the attribute picker and select 'IS-136 > DownLink Measurements > ForBER'. Set the filter operation to 'Greater than (>)'. Set the threshold to '5'.

6 7

Click OK to close the Wizard. Click Yes.

Filter the data
You can turn on and off filters from the Workspace Explorer, just by clicking on them from the drop-down menu:

Several default filters are provided to allow you to select the data that is displayed in the Workspace.

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Generate new reports
You may want to create high-level management reports based on your collected data. You can print from map and chart windows, but the Workbook function (using Microsoft Excel™) allows you to collate these views and perform other data analysis functions to produce an integrated, polished report. This task assumes that there is an Excel template created from your Actix Solution that you can use to generate a report. If you do not have a report template, see the online help for details of how to create one. 1 2 3 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.

4

Click OK to process and display the data in the workbook. You can proceed to adapt the workbook, use other Excel tools on the data, and so on.

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8

Analyzing iDEN data

The Analyzer interface
After the startup is complete, the application window looks like this:

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 Actix Solution with your preferred layouts.

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Configure network information
Import network information
As well as geographical data, it is also useful to display your network information on a map window. You must have your network information defined in a text file (usually called 'cellrefs', although it can be given any name) before you can import it. You can use the Network Explorer to import, view and edit the cellrefs file. If you manually create a cellrefs file, you must have this as the first line:
;#NetworkData – datafile

If you import the file using the Network Explorer, this line is added automatically. To maximize the benefit for iDEN network analysis, the following parameters should be included in the import:
Parameter Site Name Site Number Latitude Longitude Sector Number Actix Workspace Name IDEN_Site_SiteName IDEN_SiteID IDEN_SiteLatitude IDEN_SiteLongitude IDEN_Cell Sector ID Can use 1,2,3, etc, or a combination of site numbers IDEN_Cell Azimuth IDEN_Cell Beamwidth Purpose Text description of the Site for display on map. Numeric identifier for the Site. Locates Site icons on map. Locates Site icons on map. Sector-specific information useful for display on maps. Orients the sector icons on the map. Governs the shape of the sector 'wedge' icon to reflect the beamwidth of antenna deployed at the site. Base station power Common control channel. Can be used to color the sector wedges. A list of color codes separated by semicolons. This list is designed to match the entries in the TCH_List field. Used for determining likely serving and neighbor cells. Digital Control Channel Digital Voice Color Code A list of traffic channels separated by semicolons. This list is designed to match the entries in the Color_Codes field. Used for determining likely serving and neighbor cells. Mobile Country Code Cell Identity Text that specifies which cell layer (for example, by technology, band, purpose or status) that the site belongs to. Used for multiple cell layers.

Azimuth Beamwidth

Base Station Power CCCH Color Codes

IDEN_Cell EIRP IDEN_Cell CCCH IDEN_Cell Color_Codes

DCCH DVCC TCH_List

IDEN_Cell DCCH IDEN_Cell DVCC IDEN_Cell TCH_List

MCC CI Layer type

IDEN_Cell MCC IDEN_Cell CI Layer_type

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To import the network information 1 From the Tools menu, select Network Explorer to open the Network Explorer window. For more information on using the Network Explorer, see the online help. 2 3 4 5 6 7 From the toolbar, click Import and select Import From New Template to open the Import dialog. Select the appropriate network data file. Click Open to display the Custom Import Wizard. Give the Template a meaningful Description. Under Delimiters, check Tab. Under General Settings, enter '1' for Ignore header rows and ';' for Array (list) Separator. If your file has more than one header or uses a different array list separator, set these options accordingly. Click on the Column Settings tab. The Column Settings tab allows you to associate a network parameter with a column of data in the text file. Note that each of the field names has an associated icon: Key fields You must select a field type for this field, but you cannot set a default value. These must be either bound to a particular type or have a default value set. Binding particular field types or setting default values is not strictly necessary for this field.

8

Required fields

Other fields

9

Under the Columns heading, click on a setting for a particular field.

10 Select a column binding from the drop-down list. The Wizard then displays the selected parameter against the appropriate column. 11 Select the appropriate columns for IDEN Site and Site Name. Repeat this for the SiteID, Latitude, and Longitude.

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12 For the remaining columns, look for the attribute headers under IDEN Cell. Use the Cell ID column for the IDEN Cell Sector ID, Azimuth, Beamwidth, EIRP, CCCH, Color_Codes, TCH_List. A description of each of these parameters and their use is described in the table at the start of this section. 13 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 Explorer. 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.

Set a network information file
1 From the Tools menu, select Preferences to open the Preferences dialog:

2

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).

3

Click OK to close the Preferences dialog. You will now see a message saying that the new file will take effect with the next workspace created or loaded. You may now want to close and restart your Actix Solution for the change to take effect.

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Manage data
Load data files
1 From the main toolbar, click the Open Logfile button:

This displays the Open dialog. 2 Select an appropriate file. Files of Type defaults to 'All Formats' but you can select a specific file type to look for. This also illustrates the many file formats available for use. The Network Image feature (see later) is more practical than using Open Logfile if you need to analyse many large logfiles

Find and use data in the Workspace Explorer
The Workspace Explorer window is a graphical display of all loaded data or log files and the data structure contained within each file. Loaded files are at the highest level, with devices and other data streams displayed at lower levels. The name of each type of element is shown below. Note that the exact structures and icons used depend on the data file loaded and the group that you are examining.

The exact structures and icons used depend on the data file 1 Click on the symbols to open out and explore the data in your logfile. See how your data relates to the structure shown above. In the example below, the file 'atlantW' contains a data stream called 'Nextel iDEN Handset (0)' (the number is the data stream number within the file, starting from zero). The 'iDEN' group contains the 'DownLink Measurements' set, which contains the 'ServRSSI' data

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attribute. However, the only objects that you actually need to recognize are filenames, data streams and data attributes. The logical tree-view layout of the Workspace 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 window—for example, a map, chart, table or spreadsheet—to examine the data in detail. You can examine data streams using the Message Browser tool.

You can also use Find Attribute from the Tools menu to locate a particular attribute. See the online help for more details. You may also want additional information about a particular data attribute. 2 3 Select 'ServRSSI'. From the Help menu, select Show Context Help.

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4

button to dock the attribute help window Click the and drag it to a useful position, as shown here:

5

Select a new attribute. Note that the help now provides information on that attribute.

Delete data files
To remove a data file from the Workspace Explorer 1 2 Right-click on the name of the logfile to display the Close Logfile option. Click Close Logfile. The data file is now removed from the Workspace Explorer display.

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View summary data
The Workspace Explorer provides several ways in which you can examine summary or overview information on your loaded data:

Message Browser

Pre-configured reports (by name)

Protocol Stack Browser

Once you have used the summary data views to identify problem areas, you can use the attribute views to examine the data in detail. For more information, see the section View attribute data.

iDEN pre-configured reports
Your Actix Solution provides a set of pre-configured reports, each concentrating on a particular type of network analysis. These 'application packs' distil advanced analysis techniques into simple, comprehensive spreadsheet reports, ready for immediate use by staff of all levels of experience. The application packs are listed under the Analysis menu– which ones actually appear depend on the type of data file loaded. Note that if you do not have a loaded data file, the Analysis menu option will be grayed-out. You must also have set a valid CellRefs file. A description of the reports contained within each application pack is provided in the online help. To use an application pack 1 176 Analyzing iDEN data Ensure that you have a data file loaded. Actix A Solutions Getting Started

2

From the Analysis menu, select an application pack. Once you select an application pack, the application pack window opens.

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.

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4

Double-click on a report icon to open the report.

This will report on all data selected in the upper treeview panel. 5 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.

Reset thresholds for a new analysis
A number of the application pack reports use Custom Attributes. To change the thresholds for a new analysis, you need to re-run these Custom Attributes from the Custom Attribute Manager: • Distance_Input

You can now re-run the application pack.

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The Message Browser
The Message Browser differs from the previous data windows in that it only appears as a pop-up menu option at the data stream level in the Workspace Explorer. • From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the 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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The Protocol Stack Browser
The Protocol Stack Browser only appears as a pop-up menu option at the data stream level in the Workspace Explorer. 1 From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the data stream and select Protocol Stack Browser.

2

Now select the required browser view. Each view displays messaging and information appropriate to that view. The example shown here is the UMTS UTRAN Protocol Signaling view.

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View attribute data
From the Workspace Explorer, you can right-click any data attribute to display a suitable pop-up menu of options.

Select one of the display methods to open the appropriate data display window.

View data in a Map
1 Use the pop-up menu to display the data attribute 'ServRSSI' in a map window.

2 3 4

Click on the Pan button. Click and drag the data around the map window. Experiment with the Zoom buttons.

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5

In the Workspace Explorer, open up the 'Event Data' set and drag the 'HandOver_Complete' event onto the map, which should look similar to this:

Adding various events to the mapped data can help you see where problems are occurring. 6 Drag another data attribute onto the map. You can also change the size, symbol or color of the data, apply offsets to an attribute or merge attributes for a multidimensional display. See the online help for further details. The map legend defines histogram ranges for charts. 7 Click on one of the check boxes in the Map Legend pane to hide the related attribute data on the map. Click on it again to redisplay the data.

To find out how to add background geographical and network information to map windows, see the section 'Configure your Solution'.

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Replay the data
With a drive test file, you may want to recreate the drive test by 'playing' through the data file from beginning to end. You can do this using the Replay feature. To open the Replay control, from the main menu, select Tools, then Display Replay.

View data in a Form
While examining data on a map, you can also view data attributes for the same data point by using the Forms tool. 1 From the View menu, select Forms and select an appropriate Form (or, from the Workspace Explorer, right-click on a stream name, select Display Form and then the form name). In the map window, click Select point. and select a data

2

The Forms window now displays a variety of attributes based on the data point you selected:

Note that in this example, an appropriate cellrefs file has not been set, so no Cell or Sector ID information is displayed.

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Advanced users can use the Design Mode of this feature to create new forms for iDEN and other technologies. See the online help for details.

View data in a Chart
1 Use the pop-up menu to display the data attribute 'ServRSSI' in a chart window.

You can display more than one attribute on the same chart. 2 Select and drag the data attribute 'ServSQE' from the Workspace Explorer window onto the existing chart.

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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.

4

Release the mouse button to complete the zoom action:

Note that the zoom only operates in the X-axis, not in the Y-axis. 5 6 Now return the chart its original state by dragging a box, but this time up and to the right. Use the right mouse button to scroll and pan around the chart window.

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Although you can scroll the X-axis for all attributes on the chart, you can only pan the Y-axis for the last attribute to be displayed on the chart.

View data in a Table
Tables let you examine the numeric series, histogram and statistical data for the selected attribute. • From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the data attribute 'DownLink Measurements > ServRSSI' and select Display on Table. This opens the Table window. Experiment with the other tabs in the window.

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View data in a Workbook
Workbooks let you examine the data for the selected attribute within a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. • From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on a data attribute and select Display on Workbook to open the spreadsheet. See the section Generate New Reports to see how to create consistent Excel workbook reports.

•

About synchronized data windows
The data in each of these windows is synchronized, so that when displaying the same data attribute in a map, chart or table, if you select a data point in one window, all related map, chart or table windows also highlight the data point. You should have a map and a chart window open, both displaying the 'ServRSSI' data attribute. 1 From the map window, click on Select. Note the other toolbar buttons for selecting data points. 2 Now click on a data point on the map. You should see that the relevant parts of the map and the chart look as shown below, with a line appearing at the equivalent 'ServRSSI' point on the chart:

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Configure your Solution
Map backgrounds and layers
In the earlier example that looked at displaying data in a map window, there was no background map image to put the data into context. This section shows you how to add a background and arrange the layers within a map window. 1 2 Display a data attribute in a map window. From the map window, click Layers to open the Layer Control dialog.

Making a checkmark in a layer's box controls: if the layer is visible if objects on it can be selected if the layer can be annotated (unchecking this 'locks' the Annotations layer from having any further annotations added) 3 4 In the Layers box, click Add. From the Open Layer dialog, select one or more MapInfo Map (.tab) files. 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

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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 R Railroads H Highways S Streets wr Water (rivers) wb Water (bodies of water) lm Landmarks cb City Boundary mc Minor Civic Division cy County Other MapInfo layers: Voting District, Native American Lands, Sub-MCD, State level tables (school districts and elevation contours). For example, the MapInfo layer named GAFULTS.TAB contains street-level data for Fulton County, Georgia. 5 Click Open to display the new map layer in the Layer Control dialog.

The top of the layer list represents the uppermost layer in this map window. 6 Click Up and Down to move the new 'examplemap' layer to the bottom and 'Annotations' to the top. Analyzing iDEN data 189

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7

Click Close to return to the map view. In a new Actix installation, the map location defaults to 0° longitude, 0° latitude, so you will need to arrange the map view to display the new map.

8

Pan the map viewing area by right-clicking in the map area, then choosing Zoom, Go to Layer and selecting the new map layer. 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. For some detailed layers, you can control at what degree of magnification they become visible. This helps to minimize map clutter.

9

10 Right-click on the map window and select Map Layers to display the Layer Control dialog. 11 Select a detailed layer—for example, S1 (street names). 12 Click Display to open the Display Properties dialog. 13 Check Display within Zoom range and enter '0' for Min Zoom and '10' for Max Zoom. 14 Now do the same for street numbers, entering a zoom range of 0-3.

Display network information
To display network information on a map window, you must have your network information defined in a text file (usually called 'cellrefs.txt', although it can be given any name) before you can import it. You can use the Network Explorer to view and edit the cellrefs file. For details, refer to the online help. You should see graphics for each cell site on the map, but they may be too big or two small. To alter the size of the cell symbols You may want to change the size of cell site sectors as displayed on a map. This is especially useful if you are using multiple cell layers. 1 2 From the map window, click on Cell Sites to open the Sites/Cell Properties dialog. Set the Series to be <tech>_Cell.

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3

Set the Cell Size to be an attribute shared by all related cell sites, such as Layer_type (recommended if available from your cellrefs file) or MCC, and click OK. This will be displayed as a 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.

4

5 6

Show lines to cells on a map
1 2 3 From the map window, click on Layers to open the Layer Control dialog. Select the appropriate cell layer. Click Lines to open the Lines Configuration dialog.

4 5

Set the Lines draw mode to 'Selection' and Color lines with to the channel, and click OK, then Yes. Close the Layer Control dialog.

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6

Zoom In on data points near a cell site, and use Select to pick a data point. A solid line is drawn to the serving cell site, with dotted lines drawn to neighboring cells.

If 'All datapoints' was selected in the Line layer properties dialog, you would not need to select a data point—all data points would have a line to their neighbor cells. This can be useful in some situations.

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Loading large amounts of data
About Network Images
You may need to load a large amount of data, because you have large logfiles, you have a large number of logfiles, or both. To use the Open Logfile command would be timeconsuming, and you might be loading data that you would never actually use in any analysis. The solution in this case is to use the Network Image function. A Network Image is a repository into which you can load data from many files at the same time. However, only a small subset of the available data is loaded. This means less flexibility as you have fewer options with which to examine the data, so you must think about what you want to achieve before proceeding. • • Use a Network Image when there is a well-known, high-level analysis process and large amounts of data. Do not use a Network Image when you need to drill into details or follow a very flexible or complex analysis process.

You can also add data to the Network Image later, but for the data stored within the Network Image to be consistent, the same binning method and time-offset settings must be used. In your Actix Solution there are typically several Network Image templates provided for each mobile phone technology, and you can create and maintain as many individual Network Images as you need, for various analysis purposes. For more information on Network Images, including how to create new templates for Network Images, see the online help.

Performance limitations
Binning - When there are a large number of bins, memory usage increases and load speed deteriorates. Use lowresolution location binning where possible. Logfiles - It is better to use a few large files than many small files. If you have problems with many small files you can load a batch in one worksession, restart your Actix Solution and load another batch. Scanner data - Network Images are not suitable for use with large arrays of data, and some scanner uses are not possible.

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Create a Network Image
Network Images are created by selecting an appropriate Network Image template file. One or more Network Image templates are provided for each technology available for your license. Advanced users can create new templates using the Network Image template Wizard (for details see the online help). To create a Network Image 1 From the Network Image menu, select Create Network Image to open the Create Network Image dialog. Select the iDEN Network Image template and click OK. From the Save As dialog, enter a File name and location for the Network Image file and click Save. You may want to share this Network Image file with colleagues, so ensure that you save the file with a sensible name in a suitable location. The Network Image is saved in the specified location with a .dat file extension, and is displayed in the Workspace Explorer panel:

2 3

At this stage, the Network Image does not contain any data, so the next step is to load it up with data from existing streams or logfiles.

Load data into a Network Image
There are several ways to load data into an existing Network Image. You can also load data into a Network Image that already contains data. Note that, for the resulting Network Image to contain useful data, all data loaded into the Network Image must use the same binning method and time offset. Data should be binned at a low resolution (for example, 200meter location binning), and avoid message binning as performance will drop significantly. To load data into a Network Image 1 If the required Network Image is not already shown in the Workspace Explorer, from the Network Image menu, select Attach Network Image. Select the appropriate Network Image .dat file and click Open to display the Network Image in the Workspace Explorer.

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2

From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on the Network Image and select the appropriate data loading option. Select one or more logfiles from a folder Select a folder and load all logfiles in that folder and all subfolders

Select stream from Workspace Explorer

3

Select the required data loading option, and choose which stream, folder or multiple logfiles to load. When the data has been processed, you should see a message window showing the results for each stream or logfile.

4

Click OK to close the message window.

View data from a Network Image
Data in a Network Image is not as flexible as data in a normal Analyzer stream – for example, you cannot perform these actions on the Network Image data: • • • • Apply filters Create/edit/run new queries Run custom attributes Create superstreams

You can use Maps, Charts, Tables and Workbooks to display Network Image data attributes. To view data from a Network Image 1 If the required Network Image is not already shown in the Workspace Explorer, from the Network Image menu, select Attach Network Image. Select the appropriate Network Image .dat file and click Open to display the Network Image in the Workspace Explorer. From the Workspace Explorer, open up the structure underneath your attached Network Image. Now view the batched Network Image data attributes in the same way as you would for standard data attributes, using maps, charts and so on, by rightclicking on the attributes and selecting options from the pop-up menu.

2 3

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Queries
Your Actix Solution provides a querying interface that lets you construct simple or complex expressions. These expressions extract meaningful performance data, based on user-defined thresholds or the value of other expressions. As an example, you can create a query that returns statistics for a particular event—such as a dropped call—for a given window in time around that event. This is useful when looking for data trends. Queries are created and edited from the Tools menu, Analysis Manager option. You can create these query types: • • • Filter queries Binned queries Histogram queries • • • Statistical queries Crosstab queries Event queries

You can also: • • • Perform logical and arithmetic operators Save queries to a default Workspace Apply filters to queries

Create a filter
This example query is designed to filter poor quality in iDEN data. 1 From the Workspace Explorer, right-click on a data stream and select Filter, then Create a New Filter.

The Filter Wizard opens. 2 3 4 5 Enter 'Poor Quality' as the name of the filter. Click on the right-arrow of the attribute picker and select 'iDEN > DownLink Measurements > ServSQE'. Set the filter operation to 'Less than ( < )'. Set the threshold to '-20'.

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6

Click OK to close the Wizard.

Filter the data
You can turn on and off filters from the Workspace Explorer, just by clicking on them from the drop-down menu:

Several default filters are provided to allow you to select the data that is displayed in the Workspace.

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Generate new reports
You may want to create high-level management reports based on your collected data. You can print from map and chart windows, but the Workbook function (using Microsoft Excel™) allows you to collate these views and perform other data analysis functions to produce an integrated, polished report. This task assumes that there is an Excel template created from your Solution that you can use to generate a report. If you do not have a report template, see the online help for details of how to create one. 1 2 3 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.

4

Click OK to process and display the data in the workbook. You can proceed to adapt the workbook, use other Excel tools on the data, and so on.

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9
A

Index
Display Message Browser, 29, 64, 99, 148, 179 Display on Table, 37, 72, 106, 155, 186 Display on Workbook, 37, 73, 107, 156, 187

A and Abis Scenarios, 121 Abis Call Analysis, 123 About Actix, 10 Analysis Manager, 51, 85, 117, 166, 196 Annotations, 76, 110, 158, 189 applications, 11 Attach Network Image, 48, 49, 80, 81, 114, 115, 163, 164, 194, 195 attribute help, 9, 94, 143, 174 attributes, 60, 94, 143, 174 attributes, right-clicking on, 66 attributes, searching for, 24

E
Error Indication Cause report, 129 Excel templates, 54, 87, 119, 168, 198

F
Favorites tab, online help, 9 Favorites tab, Workspace Explorer, 15, 55, 89, 138, 169 filenames, 60, 94, 143, 174 Filter queries, 51, 85, 117, 166, 196 filter the Workspace Explorer, 123 Find Attribute, 24 Flow Control Statistics report, 134 Flush Statistics report, 134 Forms feature, 34, 68, 103, 152, 183

B
Batch Load Files, 48, 81, 115, 164, 195 Binned queries, 51, 85, 117, 166, 196 binning, 14 BSS Handover Cause by Cell report, 126 BSS Handover Matrix report, 127

C
Call Analysis, 123 CDMA StateTip, 82 CDMA Toolkit, 83 Cell Update Table report, 134 cellrefs, 56, 90, 139, 170, 190 Channel Assignment by Cell report, 125 Channel Assignment report, 125 Channel Configuration report, 129 Channel Type report, 126 Classmark report, 126 Clear Cause report, 125 Connection Analysis by Cell report, 126 Connection Analysis report, 125 Connection Failure report, 127, 129 Contents tab, online help, 8 context help, 9 coverage analysis, 83 Create a New Filter, 51, 85, 117, 166, 196 Create Network Image, 47, 80, 114, 163, 194 Crosstab queries, 51, 85, 117, 166, 196

G
Gb Load Time Queries, 134 Gb Scenarios, 131, 135 generating reports, 54, 87, 119, 168, 198 geographical data, 74, 108, 157, 188 GSM A Application Packs, 125 GSM Abis Application Packs, 125

H
Handover Cause report, 126 Handover Fail Cause report, 129 Handover Messages by Cell report, 127 Handover Reject and Fail Cause report, 126 Handover Statistics report, 127, 129 Handovers by Target report, 129 Handset Performance report, 129 Handset Types report, 126 help, context, 9 Histogram queries, 51, 85, 117, 166, 196

I
Index tab, online help, 8 integrating data files, 84

D
data attributes, 60, 94, 143, 174 data streams, 60, 94, 143, 174 Discarded LLC-PDU Statistics report, 134

L
Layer 3 messaging, 29, 64, 99, 148, 179 Layer Control dialog, 74, 108, 157, 188 Level and Interference report, 129

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Index 199

lines to cells, 43, 77, 111, 160, 191 Link Balance by DL Level report, 128 Link Balance by Timeslot report, 128 Link Balance Distribution report, 128 Link Balance UL vs DL report, 128 Load Time Queries, 134 Location Update report, 125

S
Scenarios, 121, 131 Search tab, online help, 9 Search Window analysis, 83 Services Requested report, 125 Show Context Help, 94, 143, 174 SM Error Conditions report, 133 SM PDP Context Deactivation report, 134 SM PDP Context report, 133 SSS Handover Cause by Cell report, 127 SSS Handover Matrix report, 127 StateTip, 82 Statistical queries, 51, 85, 117, 166, 196 Statistics Explorer, 122 viewing Gb Load Time Queries, 135 streams, 60, 94, 143, 174 superstreaming, 50, 84, 116, 165 synchronized data, 38, 73, 107, 156, 187 System Sensitivity report, 128

M
MapInfo data types, 75, 109, 158, 189 Message Browser, 60, 64, 94, 143, 148, 174, 179 Microsoft Excel reports, 54, 87, 119, 168, 198 MM Attach report, 133 MM Detach report, 133 MM Error Conditions report, 133 MM RA Update report, 133 Msg Breakdown report, 133 multi-carrier statistical analysis, 83 multidimensional display, 32, 67, 102, 151, 182

T
tables, using, 37, 72, 106, 155, 186 TCP Traffic Type Analysis report, 134 Technical Support telephone contact details, 10 Timing Advance and Interference report, 127, 129 Toolkit, 83 Traffic Statistics report, 127, 129

N
Neighbor List analysis, 83 Network Explorer, 56, 91, 140, 159, 171, 190 network information displaying, 159, 190 importing, 90, 139, 170

O
online help, using the, 8 Open Logfile, 24, 59, 93, 142, 173 Open Workbook, 54, 87, 119, 168, 198

U
UDP Traffic Type Analysis report, 134 UMTS filters, 53, 86, 118, 167, 197 UMTS pre-configured reports, 27 uplink and downlink data integration, 50, 116, 165

P
panning chart windows, 37, 71, 105, 154, 185 panning map windows, 31, 66, 101, 150, 181 Poor Quality Contributors report, 128 Preferences dialog, 14, 23, 58, 92, 141, 172 Protocol Stack Browser, 30, 65, 100, 149, 180

V
viewing data in charts, 35, 70, 104, 153, 184 viewing data in maps, 66, 101, 150, 181

Q
Quality Distribution report, 127, 128

W
WCDMA cell site parameters, 16 workbook reports, 54, 87, 119, 168, 198 workbooks, using, 37, 73, 107, 156, 187 workspace, 15, 55, 89, 138, 169 Workspace Explorer, 24, 93, 142, 173

R
Replay feature, 33, 68, 103, 152, 183 reports, 54, 87, 119, 168, 198 CDMA Toolkit, 83 reverse and forward link data integration, 84 Roaming by Country report, 126 Roaming by Network report, 126

Z
zooming chart windows, 36, 71, 105, 154, 185 zooming map windows, 32, 66, 102, 150, 181

200 Index

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