LTE EARFCN Radio Channel Numbers

4G LTE includes:
What is LTE     LTE OFDMA / SCFDMA     MIMO     LTE Duplex     LTE frame & subframe     LTE data channels     LTE frequency bands     LTE EARFCN     UE categories / classes     LTE-M (Machine to Machine)     LTE-LAA / LTE-U     VoLTE     SRVCC    

LTE Advanced topics:     LTE Advanced introduction     Carrier aggregation     Coordinated multipoint     LTE relay     Device to device, D2D    

The LTE standards have very little to say about the actual frequencies used for the LTE carriers. The LTE physical layer specification does not define the locations of the carriers. However in practice it is necessary to restrict the locations of the carrier centres to standardisation purposes.

It is assumed that within each supported band, LTE carriers exist on a 100kHz raster or grid.. In this way the frequency of the carrier frequency, i.e. the centre frequency of the radio channel can be expressed as m . 100 kHz, where is an integer.

To provide a means of identifying the different channels available a schme known as the EARFCN has been adopted.

LTE EARFCN

LTE EARFCN stands for E-UTRA Absolute Radio Frequency Channel Number. EARFCN number is within range 0 to 65535 .

F downlink = FDL Low + 0.1 ( NDL - NDL Offset )

F uplink = FUL Low + 0.1 ( NUL - NUL Offset )

Where:
   NDL = downlink EARFCN
   NUL = uplink EARFCN
   NDLoffset = offset used to calculate downlink EARFCN
   NULoffset = offset used to calculate uplink EARFCN

LTE EARFCN channel / band chart

To provide a view of the EARFCN channel calculations, the table below provides a good indication of the ranges for many of the LTE frequency bands.

It can be seen that the downlink EARFCN starts at 0 and the Uplink starts at 18000.


EARFCN Chanel Numbers for Channels 1 - 14
 
E-UTRA band FDL_Low (MHz) NDL_Offset downlink EARFCN(NDL) FUL_Low(MHz) NUL_Offset uplink EARFCN
(NUL)
1 2110 0 0-599 1920 18000 18000-
18599
2 1930 600 600-1199 1850 18600 18600-
19199
3 1805 1200 1200-1949 1710 19200 19200-
19949
4 2110 1950 1950-2399 1710 19950 19950-
20399
5 869 2400 2400-2649 824 20400 20400-
20649
6 875 2650 2650-2749 830 20650 20650-
20749
7 2620 2750 2750-3449 2500 20750 20750-
21449
8 925 3450 3450-3799 880 21450 21450-
21799
9 1844.9 3800 3800-4149 1749.9 21800 21800-
22149
10 2110 4150 4150-4749 1710 22150 22150-
22749
11 1475.9 4750 4750-4999 1427.9 22750 22750-
22999
12 728 5000 5000-5179 698 23000 23000-
23179
13 746 5180 5180-5279 777 23180 23180-
23279
14 758 5280 5280-5379 788 23280 23280-
23379

The table above provides a good indication of the EARFCN channel numbers for several LTE bands and provides a useful indication of the ranges of channel numbers.

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