RSRQ
Reference Signal Received Quality: the ratio of RSRP to the total received wideband power, indicating the quality of the received reference signal including interference.
RSRQ exists to answer a question RSRP can't: is this strong signal actually clean? It's defined as N times RSRP divided by the total received wideband power (RSSI), where N is the number of resource blocks — so it captures how much of what you're receiving is the wanted reference signal versus everything else, including interference and the cell's own traffic load.
That makes RSRQ sensitive to congestion in a way RSRP isn't. As a cell fills with users, RSSI climbs while the per-element reference power stays put, so RSRQ degrades even though RSRP hasn't moved. Field engineers lean on this: a good RSRP paired with a sagging RSRQ points to an interference or loading problem rather than a coverage one. Values typically sit between about -3 dB (very good) and -20 dB (poor), and the handover machinery uses RSRQ alongside RSRP precisely so it doesn't camp you on a strong-but-saturated cell.
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