RSRP and RSRQ Measurement in LTE

In cellular networks, when a mobile

moves from cell to cell and performs cell selection/reselection and handover, it has to
measure
the
signal
strength/quality
of
the
neighbor
cells.
In LTE network, a UE measures two parameters on reference signal: RSRP (Reference
Signal Received Power) and RSRQ (Reference Signal Received Quality).
In LTE network, a UE measures two parameters on reference signal:
RSSI - Received Signal Strength Indicator:The carrier RSSI (Receive Strength Signal
Indicator) measures the average total received power observed only in OFDM symbols
containing reference symbols for antenna port 0 (i.e., OFDM symbol 0 & 4 in a slot) in
the measurement bandwidth over N resource blocks.
The total received power of the carrier RSSI includes the power from co-channel
serving & non-serving cells, adjacent channel interference, thermal noise, etc. Total
measured over 12-subcarriers including RS from Serving Cell, Traffic in the Serving
Cell
RSRP - Reference Signal Received Power: RSRP is a RSSI type of measurement, as
follows there are some definition of it and some details as well.
It is the power of the LTE Reference Signals spread over the full bandwidth and
narrowband.
A minimum of -20 dB SINR (of the S-Synch channel) is needed to detect RSRP/RSRQ
RSRQ - Reference Signal Received Quality: Quality considering also RSSI and the
number of used Resource Blocks (N) RSRQ = (N * RSRP) / RSSI measured over the
same bandwidth. RSRQ is a C/I type of measurement and it indicates the quality of the
received reference signal. The RSRQ measurement provides additional information
when RSRP is not sufficient to make a reliable handover or cell reselection decision.
In the procedure of handover, the LTE specification provides the flexibility of using
RSRP, RSRQ, or both.
It must to be measured over the same bandwidth:
o
o

Narrowband N = 62 Sub Carriers (6 Resource Blocks)

Wideband N = full bandwidth (up to 100 Resource Blocks / 20
MHz)

RSRP 3GPP Definition

Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP), is defined as the linear average over the
power contributions (in [W]) of the resource elements that carry cell-specific reference
signals
within
the considered
measurement
frequency
bandwidth.
For RSRP determination the cell-specific reference signals R0 according TS 36.211 [3]
shall be used. If the UE can reliably detect that R1 is available it may use R1 in addition
to
R0
to
determine RSRP.
The reference point for the RSRP shall be the antenna connector of the UE.
Or, even better, Reference Signal Received Quality is defined as the ratio NRSRP/
(E-UTRA carrier RSSI), where N is the number of RBs of the E-UTRA carrier RSSI
measurement bandwidth. The measurements in the numerator and denominator
shall be made over the same set of resource blocks.
If receiver diversity is in use by the UE, the reported value shall not be lower than
the corresponding RSRP of any of the individual diversity branches.
Applicable for: RRC_IDLE intra-frequency, RRC_IDLE interfrequency, RRC_CONNECTED intra-frequency, RRC_CONNECTED inter-frequency
Note1: The number of resource elements within the considered measurement
frequency bandwidth and within the measurement period that are used by the UE to
determine RSRP is left up to the UE implementation with the limitation that
corresponding measurement accuracy requirements have to be fulfilled.
Note 2: The power per resource element is determined from the energy received
during the useful part of the symbol, excluding the CP.

RSRP
In other words RSRP (Reference Signal Receive Power) is the average power of
Resource Elements (RE) that carry cell specific Reference Signals (RS) over the entire
bandwidth, so RSRP is only measured in the symbols carrying RS.
o
o

RSRP is the average received power of a single RS resource

element.
UE measures the power of multiple resource elements used to
transfer the reference signal but then takes an average of them
rather than summing them.
Reporting range -44-140 dBm

RSRP does a better job of measuring signal power from a specific sector while
potentially excluding noise and interference from other sectors.
RSRP levels for usable signal typically range from about -75 dBm close in to an LTE
cell site to -120 dBm at the edge of LTE coverage.

RSRP mapping 3GPP TS 36.133 V8.9.0 (2010-03)

The reporting range of RSRP is defined from -140 dBm to - 44 dBm with 1 dB
resolution.
The mapping of measured quantity is defined in the table.

RSRQ 3GPP Definition

Reference Signal Received Quality (RSRQ) is defined as the ratio NRSRP/(E-UTRA
carrier RSSI), where N is the number of RBs of the E-UTRA carrier RSSI
measurement bandwidth. The measurements in the numerator and denominator shall be
made over the same set of resource blocks.
E-UTRA Carrier Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), comprises the linear
average of the total received power (in [W]) observed only in OFDM symbols
containing reference symbols for antenna port 0, in the measurement bandwidth, over N
number of resource blocks by the UE from all sources, including co-channel serving
and non-serving cells, adjacent channel interference, thermal noise etc.
The reference point for the RSRQ shall be the antenna connector of the UE. If receiver
diversity is in use by the UE, the reported value shall not be lower than
the corresponding RSRQ of any of the individual diversity branches.
Applicable for: RRC_CONNECTED intra-frequency, RRC_CONNECTED interfrequency

RSRQ

In formula:
RSRQ = N x RSRP / RSSI
o

o
o

N is the number of Physical Resource Blocks (PRBs) over

which the RSSI is measured, typically equal to system
bandwidth
RSSI is pure wide band power measurement, including
intracell power, interference and noise
The reporting range of RSRQ is defined from -319.5dB

Reference Signals recap: OFDMA Channel Estimation

In simple terms the Reference Signal (RS) is mapped to Resource Elements (RE). This
mapping follows a specific pattern (see to below).
So at any point in time the UE will measure all the REs that carry the RS and average
the measurements to obtain an RSRP reading.
o
o

Channel estimation in LTE is based on reference signals (like

CPICH functionality in WCDMA)
Reference signals position in time domain is fixed (0 and 4 for
Type 1 Frame) whereas in frequency domain it depends on the
Cell ID
In case more than one antenna is used (e.g. MIMO) the Resource
elements allocated to reference signals on one antenna are DTX
on the other antennas
Reference signals are modulated to identify the cell to which they
belong.

RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) is a parameter which provides information

about total received wide-band power (measure in all symbols) including all
interference and thermal noise.
RSSI is not reported to eNodeB by UE. It can simply be computed from RSRQ and
RSRP that are, instead, reported by UE.

RSSI = wideband power = noise + serving cell power + interference

power
So, without noise and interference, we have that 100% DL PRB
activity: RSSI=12*N*RSRP
Where:
o

o
o

RSRP is the received power of 1 RE (3GPP definition) average

of power levels received across all Reference Signal symbols
within the considered measurement frequency bandwidth
RSSI is measured over the entire bandwidth
N: number of RBs across the RSSI is measured and depends on
the BW

Based on the above, under full load and high:

SNR: RSRP (dBm)= RSSI (dBm) -10*log (12*N)

So we have:
RSRQ = RSRP / (RSSI/N)
o
o
o

N = Number of PRBs (Physical Resource Blocks)

RSSI = noise + serving cell power + interference power
during RS symbol
So we have that RSRQ depends on serving cell power and the
number of Tx antennas

Impact of serving cell power to RSRQ:

Example for noise limited case (no interference): If all resource elements are active
and are transmitted with equal power, then
RSRQ = N / 12N = -10.8 dB for 1Tx
RSRQ = N / 20N = -13 dB for 2Tx taking DTX into account
(because RSRP is measured over 1 resource element and RSSI per resource block
is measured over 12 resource elements).

Remember that RSSI is only measured at those symbol times during which RS
REs are transmitted - We do not have to take into the count DTx!!!
So, when there is no traffic, and assuming only the reference symbols are transmitted
(there are 2 of them within the same symbol of a resource block) from a single Tx
antenna then the RSSI is generated by only the 2 reference symbols so the result
becomes
RSRQ = N / 2N = -3 dB for 1Tx
RSRQ = -6dB for 2Tx
SINR Definition
SINR is the reference value used in the system simulation and can be defined:
1. Wide band SINR
2. SINR for a specific subcarriers (or for a specific resource
elements)
SINR = S/(I+N), all measured over the same bandwidth

SNR vs. RSRP

RSRP is measured for a single subcarrier, noisepower for 15KHz= -125.2dBm
1. Noise figure = 7 dB
2. Temperature = 290 K
Assumption: RSRP doesnt contain noise power

RSRQ to SINR

It is common sense that

the performance of any wireless system has a direct relationship with the RF conditions
at the time.
To aid with performance analysis then, it is tipical to define some ranges of RF
measurements that correspond to some typical RF conditions one might find themselves
in.
The table on the rigth represents a good classification of RF conditions Vs LTE KPIs.
The source of this table is a EUTRAN vendor and has been complied during the RF
tuning process for a major US operator. Of course there are no rules as to how various
RF conditions are classified, so different tables will exist but to a great extent you can
expect them to align.
In this particular example, three measurement quantities are used

o
o
o

RSRP (Reference Signal Received Power)

RSRQ (Reference Signal Received Quality)
SINR (Signal to Interference & Noise Ratio)

In this article we would like to highlight some of question about SINR & RSRQ
relations.

SINR is defined as:

o

S: indicates the power of

measured
usable
signals.
Reference signals (RS) and
physical
downlink
shared
channels (PDSCHs) are mainly
involved

I:
indicates
the
average
interference power - the power of
measured signals or channel
interference signals from other
cells in the current system

N: indicates background noise,

which is related to measurement
bandwidths and receiver noise
coefficients

All quantities are measured over the same bandwidth and normalized to one subcarrier
bandwidth.
SINR is a measure of signal quality as well but it is not defined in the 3GPP specs but
defined by the UE vendor.
It is not reported to the network. SINR is used a lot by operators, and the LTE industry
in general, as it better quantifies the relationship between RF conditions and
Throughput. UEs typically use SINR to calculate the CQI (Channel Quality Indicator)
they report to the network.
It is a common practice to use Signal-toInterference Ratio (SINR) as an indicator for
network quality. It should be however noted that 3GPP specifications do not define
SINR and therefore UE does not report SINR to the network. SINR is still internally
measureed by most UEs and recorded by drive test tools.
Unfortunately UE chipset and RF scanner manufacturers have implemented SINR
measurement in various different ways which in the authors field experience are not
always easily comparable. While at first it may seem that defining SINR should be
unambiguous, in case of LTE downlink this is not the case. This is because different
REs within a radio frame carry different physical signals and channels each of which, in
turn, see different interference power depending on inter-cell radio frame
synchronization.
For example, in a frame-synchronized network, SINR estimation based on
synchronization signals (PSS/SSS) results in different SINR than SINR estimation
based on Reference Signals, since in the latter case the frequency shift of the RS
depends on the PCI plan.
RSRQ is defined as

In what follows we show one way of converting RSRQ to SINR.

In OFDM own cell interference is often assumed to be negligible and consequently I is
due to other cell interference only.
RSSI is defined as:

where the subscript tot indicates that the power is measured over the 12NRE
subcarriers of the measurement bandwidth.
The total serving cell received power depends on the number of transmitted subcarriers
in the OFDM symbol carrying R0, and on the number of transmit antennas.
We can model this impact using the per-antenna subcarrier activity factor x and set

The value of x = 1 indicates full load such that all subcarriers of one transmit antenna
are transmitted for the OFDM symbol carrying R0
If only RS is transmitted (i.e., unloaded cell) the resulting subcarrier activity factors
would be x = 1/6 and x = 1/3 for one and two transmit antennas, respectively.
When calculating x for two transmit antennas, one should take into account that REs
overlapping with adjacent antenna RS transmission are muted, and therefore, for
example, in a fully loaded 2Tx cell the scaling factor is x = 5/3 , instead of two.
It is assumed that all subcarriers have the same power, i.e., there is no power boosting
for any channel.
Since subcarrier interference plus noise power is

by combining the above equations we have the following relation of average subcarrier
SINR and RSRQ (Click on Formula To Enlarge):

and finally:

To conclude, here are a few takeaways about RSSI and RSRP as signal strength
measurement techniques for LTE:
o

RSSI varies with LTE downlink bandwidth. For example,

even if all other factors were equal, VZW 10 MHz LTE
bandwidth RSSI would measure 3 dB greater than would
Sprint 5 MHz LTE bandwidth RSSI. But that does not
actually translate to stronger signal to the end user.

RSSI varies with LTE subcarrier activity -- the greater the

data transfer activity, the higher the RSSI. But, again, that
does not actually translate to stronger signal to the end user.
RSRP does a better job of measuring signal power from a
specific sector while potentially excluding noise and
interference from other sectors.
RSRP levels for usable signal typically range from about -75
dBm close in to an LTE cell site to -120 dBm at the edge of
LTE coverage.