What is Ec/Io, How it is varied with traffic, Why Ec/Io is always

negative
This is a key parameter of CDMA technology measure at mobile station. It shows signal
strength of each sector individually. Now question is arises in our mind that signal strength
can be measured with RSSI also then why Ec/Io is used because RSSI is sum of signal
strength of all sectors received by mobile. To judge signal of each sector Ec/Io parameter is
used. Thats why Ec/Io is used to decide handoffs.

Ec/Io is the ratio of pilot power to total power. Total power includes pilot channel power,
paging channel power, sync channel power and traffic channel power.
Lets consider following situation. Here pilot power is 2W and total power is 5.6W. Then
Ec/Io is (2/5.6) and it is equal to -4 db (equation is 10* log (2/5.6)).

Traffic channel 2W
Sync channel 1.4W
Paging
channel
.2W
Pilot channel

Io

2W

In following situation pilot power is 2W and total power is 9.6 W. Here Ec/Io is (2/9.6) and it
is equal to -7 db (equation is 10* log (2/9.6)).

Io
Traffic channel
6W

Sync channel

1.4W

Paging
channel

.2W

Pilot channel

2W

Why Ec/Io is always negative?

We can see that Ec/Io is ratio of pilot power to total power (including noise). Now pilot
power is always less then total power and ratio value of these will always less than 1.
Logarithm of any less than 1 value is always negative. This is the reason why Ec/Io is
always negative.