Patent ID: 7246045

Claim:
A method for designing, managing, optimizing or maintaining a communications network or communications networks, comprising the steps of: providing (A) a computerized model which represents a physical environment in which a communications network may be installed, said computerized model providing a display of at least a portion of said physical environment, (B) performance attributes for a plurality of system components which may be used in said physical environment, and one or more of (C) one or more prediction models which use the computerized model and the performance attributes of specific components of said plurality of system components to predict performance characteristics of said communications network, and (D) actual performance measurements taken from said physical environment at one or more locations during one or more measurement runs; selecting specific components from said plurality of system components for use in said communications network; and displaying a computer representation of said physical environment using said computerized model, said computer representation showing locations of specific components selected in said selecting step within said physical environment and performance information for one or more locations within said physical environment, said performance information being any one or more of the following: (A) showing a comparison of actual performance measurements to predicted performance values, (B) showing a comparison of actual performance measurements taken during two or more measurement runs, and (C) showing a comparison of at least two different predictions made with at least two different simulations.