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Absolute radio-frequency channel number

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In GSM cellular networks, an

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specifies a pair of physical radio carriers used for transmission and reception in a land mobile radio

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system, one for the uplink signal and one for the downlink signal. ARFCNs are for GSM defined in

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absolute radio-frequency channel number (ARFCN) is a code that

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 have 25kHz
channel spacing and use different base frequencies for numbering.

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Different frequencies (ARFCNs) are used for the frequency-based component of GSMs multiple access

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scheme (FDMA frequency-division multiple access). Uplink/downlink channel pairs in GSM are

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identified by ARFCN. Together with the time-based component (TDMA time division multiple

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access) the physical channel is defined by selecting a certain ARFCN and a certain time slot. Note not to

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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.

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1 ARFCN Table for common GSM systems

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2 Other versions of ARFCN

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2.1 Example ARFCN for TETRA

3 See also
4 References

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ARFCN Table for common GSM systems

[edit]

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

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number and vice versa.

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Observe this table only deals with GSM systems. There are other mobile telecommunications systems that

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do use ARFCN to number their channels but they may use different offsets, channel spacing and so on.
Band

Designation

ARFCN

GSM 450

259293

450.6+0.2(n259)

GSM 480

306340

479.0+0.2(n306)[1] fUL(n) + 10

GSM 700

GSM 750

438511

747.2+0.2(n438)[2] fUL(n) + 30

GSM 850

GSM 850

128251

824.2+0.2(n128)

fUL(n) + 45

P-GSM

1124

890.0+0.2n

fUL(n) + 45

GSM 500

fUL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_radio-frequency_channel_number[6/3/2016 10:21:24 AM]

fDL
fUL(n) + 10

Absolute radio-frequency channel number - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

GSM 900

E-GSM

GSM-R

0124

890.0+0.2n

9751023 890.0+0.2(n1024)
0124

890.0+0.2n

9551023 890.0+0.2(n1024)

fUL(n) + 45
fUL(n) + 45

GSM 1800

DCS 1800

512885

1710.2+0.2(n512)

fUL(n) + 95

GSM 1900

PCS 1900

512810

1850.2+0.2(n512)

fUL(n) + 80

Other versions of ARFCN

[edit]

TETRA uses different channel spacing compared to GSM systems. The standard is 25kHz spacing and
the center frequency of each channel may be offset in a number of fashions such as 12.5kHz or even
6.25kHz. 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 10MHz 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 10MHz
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

[edit]

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
300MHz and an offset of 12.5kHz.
To calculate the ARFCN from frequency the following method is used:

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 380-385MHz for the uplink (mobile
to radio base station) paired with 390-395MHz for the downlink (radio base station to mobile).
Therefore, the base frequency fb is 300MHz (the baseband frequency to relate from) and the offset is
0.0125MHz (12.5kHz) and thus we get the relation:

Inseting the frequency for the first channel 390.00125MHz gives us an ARFCN of 3600.
Calculating the frequency from ARFCN is just the reverse of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_radio-frequency_channel_number[6/3/2016 10:21:24 AM]

Absolute radio-frequency channel number - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See also

[edit]

Mobile Allocation Index Offset

References

[edit]

1. ^ 3GPP Specification detail TS 05.05

Specification 3GPP TS 05.05 Radio Transmission and

Reception
2. ^ 3GPP Specification detail TS 45.005

Specification 3GPP TS 45.005 Radio Transmission

and Reception

Categories : GSM standard

This page was last modified on 27 April 2016, at 10:37.

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