Absolute radio-frequency channel number

In GSM cellular networks, an absolute radio-frequency channel number (ARFCN) is a

code that specifies a pair of physical radio carriers used for transmission and
reception in a land mobile radio system, one for the uplink signal and one for the
downlink signal. ARFCNs for GSM are defined in Specification 45.005 Section 2.
There are also other variants of the ARFCN numbering scheme that are in use for
other systems that are not GSM. One such example is the TETRA system that has 25
kHz channel spacing and uses different base frequencies for numbering.

Different frequencies (ARFCNs) are used for the frequency-based component of GSMs
multiple access scheme (FDMA frequency-division multiple access). Uplink/downlink
channel pairs in GSM are identified by ARFCN. Together with the time-based
component (TDMA time-division multiple access) the physical channel is defined by
selecting a certain ARFCN and a certain time slot. Note not to confuse this
physical channel with the logical channels (e.g. BCCH Broadcast Control Channel)
that are time-multiplexed onto it under the rules of GSM Specification 05.03.

Contents

1 ARFCN table for common GSM systems

2 Other versions of ARFCN
2.1 Example ARFCN for TETRA
3 See also
4 References

ARFCN table for common GSM systems

This table shows the common channel numbers and corresponding uplink and downlink
frequencies associated with a particular ARFCN, as well as the way to calculate the
frequency from the ARFCN number and vice versa.

Observe this table only deals with GSM systems. There are other mobile
telecommunications systems that do use ARFCN to number their channels, but they may
use different offsets, channel spacing and so on.
Band Designation ARFCN fUL fDL
GSM 500 GSM 450 259-293 450.6 + 0.2(n-259) fUL(n) + 10
GSM 480 306-340 479.0 + 0.2(n-306)[1] fUL(n) + 10
GSM 700 GSM 750 438-511 747.2 + 0.2(n-438)[2] fUL(n) + 30
GSM 850 GSM 850 128-251 824.2 + 0.2(n-128) fUL(n) + 45
GSM 900 P-GSM 1-124 890.0 + 0.2n fUL(n) + 45
E-GSM 0-124
975-1023 890.0 + 0.2n
890.0 + 0.2(n-1024) fUL(n) + 45
GSM-R 0-124
955-1023 890.0 + 0.2n
890.0 + 0.2(n-1024) fUL(n) + 45
GSM 1800 DCS 1800 512-885 1710.2 + 0.2(n-512) fUL(n) + 95
GSM 1900 PCS 1900 512-810 1850.2 + 0.2(n-512) fUL(n) + 80
Other versions of ARFCN

TETRA uses different channel spacing compared to GSM systems. The standard is 25
kHz spacing and the center frequency of each channel may be offset in a number of
fashions such as 12.5 kHz or even 6.25 kHz. This makes it more tricky to
correlate the ARFCN strictly to a pair of frequencies, you need to know the
specifics of the system. Also the duplex spacing is generally 10 MHz in TETRA
although other versions are available for certain applications.

In TETRA the ARFCN is always given for the downlink frequency, the uplink is by
standard 10 MHz lower in frequency than the downlink frequency.

In UMTS for 3G and 4G mobile telephone systems, ARFCN is replaced with UARFCN and
EARFCN which are simpler and always has a direct relation between the frequency and
the channel number.
Example ARFCN for TETRA

In many countries in Europe there is a standardised set of frequencies used for

blue light services i.e. the police, firebrigade, rescue and so on. This set of
frequencies correspond to ARFCN with a base of 300 MHz and an offset of 12.5 kHz.

To calculate the ARFCN from frequency the following method is used:

A R F C N = f - f b - f o f c {\displaystyle \mathrm {ARFCN} ={\frac {f-f_{b}-

f_{o}}{f_{c}}}} {\mathrm {ARFCN}}={\frac {f-f_{b}-f_{o}}{f_{c}}}

Where:

f is the actual frequency [MHz]

fb is the base frequency [MHz]
fo is the offset frequency [MHz]
fc is the channel spacing frequency [MHz]

The range of frequencies used in these tetra systems are defined by 380-385 MHz for
the uplink (mobile to radio base station) paired with 390-395 MHz for the downlink
(radio base station to mobile). Therefore, the base frequency fb is 300 MHz (the
baseband frequency to relate from) and the offset is 0.0125 MHz (12.5 kHz) and thus
we get the relation:

A R F C N = f - 300 - 0.0125 0.025 {\displaystyle \mathrm {ARFCN} ={\frac {f-300-

0.0125}{0.025}}} {\mathrm {ARFCN}}={\frac {f-300-0.0125}{0.025}}

Inseting the frequency for the first channel 390.00125 MHz gives us an ARFCN of
3600.

Calculating the frequency from ARFCN is just the reverse of this:

f = f c A R F C N + f b + f o {\displaystyle f=f_{c}\cdot \mathrm {ARFCN} +f_{b}

+f_{o}} f=f_{c}\cdot {\mathrm {ARFCN}}+f_{b}+f_{o}
See also

Mobile Allocation Index Offset

References

3GPP Specification detail TS 05.05 Specification 3GPP TS 05.05 Radio Transmission

and Reception.

3GPP Specification detail TS 45.005 Specification 3GPP TS 45.005 Radio

Transmission and Reception.

Categories:

GSM standard