Basic RF definitions (EcNo, CQI, SQI-MOS, PESQ, BER, FER, BLKER, C/I, SNR, Ful vs.

Sub)
EcNo
EcNo is a quality and capacity measuring metric. It gives indication how good or bad the link Quality is.
However, by definition,
CPICH Ec/No = Pilot channel quality energy per chip over total received power spectral density, OR
EcNo = RSCP RSSI
RSCP: The Received Signal Code Power, that is the power level the pilot channel of a cell is received. With
this parameter, different cells using the same carrier can be compared and handover or cell reselection
decisions can be taken.
RSSI: The signal power over the complete 5 MHz carrier which includes all components received,
including the signals from the current and neighboring cells on the same frequency in addition to other
users of the current cell (power for other dedicated or control channels).
So EcNo is the received energy per chip (Ec) of the pilot channel divided by the total noise power density
(No). In other words the EcNo is the RSCP divided by the RSSI. Thus the better this value the better can a
signal of a cell be distinguished from the overall noise.
The EcNo is usually expressed in dB as it's a relative value. The value is negative as the RSCP is smaller
than the total received power. Like RSCP, this value can be used to compare different cells on the same
carrier and handover or cell reselection decisions can be taken.
EcNo after spreading while EbNo after despreading.
CQI (Channel Quality Indication)
Why CQI is more reliable and used in case of HSDPA rather than EcNo ?!
Common channels have the highest priority for
power. Their power is fixed.
DCH come second in priority Power control is
applicable.
All the remains after DCH utilization can be used
up for HSDPA power.
So, If a cell is less loaded , a single UE HS session can
utilize the whole HSDPA power space which is lying
unused

Example 1, EcNo calculation for cell with no traffic DCH

or HS,
Assuming MaxTXPower is 20W or 43dBm and CPICH
Power is 10% of cell power or 2W (33dBm)
So EcNo = 10log (CPICH Power/Total Transmit Power) =
10log (2W/2W) = 0
Or EcNo = RSCP RSSI = 33 dBm 33 dBm = 0 dB
Example 2, EcNo calculation for cell with no DCH but 1 HSDPA user,
Assuming MaxTXPower is 20W or 43dBm and CPICH Power is 10% of cell power or 2W (33dBm) then the
remaining power (18W) for HSDPA i.e. cell is fully utilized.
So EcNo = 10log (CPICH Power/Total Transmit Power) = 10log (2W/20W) = -10 dB
Or EcNo = RSCP RSSI = 33 dBm 43 dBm = -10 dB best EcNo value can be measured in this case
What happens when more HS users share the remaining power or with the addition of DCH? Will Ec/No
improve or degrade?
Then when resources of cell are shared between many users considering interference from other cells,
the Ec/No will always give a FALSE value for an HSDPA user and it will show a poor value.
HSDPA vs. CQI
HSDPA utilizes link adaptation techniques to substitute power control and variable spreading
factor in R99.
The HS-DSCH link-adaptation algorithm at the Node-B is very dynamic, and adjusts the transmit
bit rate on the HS-DSCH (on physical layer HS-PDSCH) every TTI.
The UE periodically reports CQI (5 bits) to the serving cell on the uplink HS-DPCCH (in addition to
ACK/NACK to HARQ).

The CQI tells the Node-B scheduler the data rate the UE expects to be able to receive.

The CQI table consists of 30 entries, where each entry indicates a different TFRC (Transport Format
Resource Combination) that refers to the combination of number of HS-PDSCH channelization codes,
modulation scheme, and the HS-DSCH transport block size.
The TFRC combinations are different for UEs with different HS-DSCH UE categories because of the
differences in the UE capabilities. Along with TFRC, CQI may also indicate a power offset relative to the
current HS-PDSCH power. The CQI table shown below is for UE categories supporting up to 15 HS-PDSCH
codes (category 10)
Number of
HS-PDSCH

Reference power
adjustment

CQI value

Transport
Block Size

N/A

137

QPSK

173

QPSK

13

2279

QPSK

14

2583

QPSK

15

3319

QPSK

16

3565

16-QAM

17

4189

16-QAM

18

4664

16-QAM

28

23370

15

16-QAM

29

24222

15

16-QAM

30

25558

15

16-QAM

Modulation
Out of range

HSDPA UE Categories
UE
Category

Maximum Number of
HS-DSCH
Codes
Received

Minimum InterTTI Interval

Maximum Number of Bits of

an HS-DSCH Transport Block
Received Within an HS-DSCH
TTI

Total Number of
Soft
Channel
Bits

Category 1

7298

19200

Category 2

7298

28800

Category 3

7298

28800

Category 4

7298

38400

Category 5

7298

57600

Category 6

7298

67200

Category 7

10

14411

115200

Category 8

10

14411

134400

Category 9

15

20251

172800

Category
10

15

27952

172800

Category
11

3630

14400

Category
12

3630

28800

HSDPA is advertised with data rates up to 14 Mbps. However, the actual HS-DSCH peak data rate
depends on the UE category. As shown in the table, only a category 10 UE can achieve the maximum
HSDPA throughput of 14 Mbps when using all 15 HS-PDSCHs simultaneously.
Factors that decide the UEs HS-DSCH category are:
HS-PDSCH codes Determines the number of simultaneous HS-PDSCH channels that can be
decoded by a UE (5, 10, 15).
Inter-TTI interval Determines the minimum interval (in terms of HS-DSCH TTI) between two
successive HS-PDSCH assignments. The more HARQ processes a UE supports, the shorter the
inter-TTI interval. A minimum inter-TTI of 1 requires at least 6 simultaneous HARQ processes.
Transport Block size Determines the maximum size of transport block that can be sent on HSDSCH in a TTI. It is dependent on the number of HS-PDSCH codes and the modulation scheme.
IR buffer size Determines the maximum number of soft bits that can be buffered by a UE across
all simultaneously running HARQ processes to soft-combine symbols from retransmissions.
how CQI helps in determining the initial throughput required
by UE
SINR is used to evaluate the channel quality as
observed by the receiver. CQI value for a given SINR is
done via a linear mapping.
The CQI values are used by the link adaptation
algorithm at the node-B. Every CQI value reported
corresponds to the TRANSPORT BLOCK SIZE (TBS) that can be granted on a particular
Modulation type and number of HS-PDSCH codes. Example of a UE category 10 CQI values from 0
to 30 where 30 using 15 HS-PDSCH codes and 16-QAM modulation.
The CQI is further defined as the TBS that can be supported with a BLER no greater than 10%.
When CQI is sending UEs requirement to the system in UL, there is BLER calculation going on and
UL HARQ (Hybrid Auto Repeat Request) mechanism is helping in maintaining the BLER to below
10%.
So the system (NodeB) is essentially calculating the Data Rate to be scheduled to the user based
on CQI reports and BLER that received from the UE
SQI-MOS
It takes the following parameters as input:
Frame error rate (FER), the percentage of frames that are lost on their way to the receiving
party, usually because of bad radio conditions. Frame errors also occur in connection with
handover. It should be noted that in WCDMA, handover frame errors can usually be avoided
thanks to the soft handover mechanism. While in GSM, every handover causes anumber of frames
to be lost.
Bit error rate (BER), the percentage of the number of received bits that have been altered
mainly due to bad radio conditions, divided by the total number of transferred bits during a
studied time interval. CRC bits are added for error detection and correction. This is available in
GSM only; no such quantity is reported by UEs in WCDMA mode.
The speech codec used.The general speech quality level and the highestattainable quality vary
widely between codecs. Moreover, each speech codechas its own strengths and weaknesses with
regard to input properties and channel conditions. The same basic SQI-MOS model is used for all
supported speech codecs,but the model is tuned separately for each codec to capture its unique
characteristics.
The output score is a value ranging from 1 to 5 while SQI should be greater than 18.
Narrowband vs. Wideband SQI-MOS: MOS score indicates a higher quality for wideband than for
narrowband. This is because wideband speech coding models a wider range of the speech frequency
spectrum and is thus inherently superior to narrowband coding. The highest attainable quality is
therefore markedly better for wideband.
Alignment of SQI-MOS and PESQ: The SQI-MOS algorithm has been designed to correlate its output with
the PESQ measure (Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality).

PESQ measures the quality end-to-end, that is, also taking the fixed side into account. Besides,
PESQ is a reference-based method which compares the received degraded speech signal with
same signal in original and undistorted form.
SQI reflects the radio link quality only. Besides, SQI-MOS is a no-reference method that works with
the received signal alone and extracts radio parameters from it.
This means that PESQ and SQI values may differ while both being accurate in their respective domains.

C/I (Carrier to Interference Ratio)

In case of Co is -6 i.e. source should be greater than interferer by more than 6 dB while in case of Adj 9
i.e. interferer F +/-1 should be more than source F by 9 dB
SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio)
Signal to Noise ratio of the carrier. SNR should be less than 6% as values higher than that will result in
low throughput.
Ful vs. Sub
Full takes received power in DL from BTS in addition to comfort noise generated by UE i.e. call whole
power. Whereas Sub takes into consideration received power only so it's more reliable in air interface
judgement.
When DTX = 0 then Ful = Sub
Rx_Level_Full is measured when DTX is off & Sub is when DTX
is on.
RX Lev Full: Its is nothing but the Mobile transmit the
measurment report(SACCH multiframe) for every 480ms. this
multiframe containes 104 TDMA frames, in 104 TDMA frames 4
TDMA frames for Decode the BSIC and remaining 100 TDMA
frames for Average measurment of serving cell and
neighbouring cell.This average measurment of 100 TDMA frames
are RX Lev Full
RX Lev Sub: DTX is a discontinuous transmission, When the
mobile conversation 40% of the time either Transmitter or
Receive is idle. When DTX is ON, DTX will switch off the
Transmitter or Receiver when they is no speech Pulses. only
few TDMA frames will transmit, the average of this TDMA
frames is called RX Lev Sub, give you proper measurment of
RX level

BLKER (Block Error Rate)

In 3G and represents the percentage of lost blocks to the total number of transmitted blocks.
After interleaving stages, bits are distributed randomly and transmitted in blocks such that when block is
lost, CRC can detect and restore the missing data that was not transmitted in series like before
interleaving.
Fast closed loop Power Control is employed to ensure that a target Signal to Interference Ratio (SIR) is
maintained in order to control the block error rate (BLER) in case of DCH physical channel.