(Initial) Cell Selection Process

There exist two cell selection procedures:

Initial Cell Selection

The UE has to find a suitable cell of the PLMN, which was selected by the NAS.
To do so, the mobile phone scans all radio frequency carriers of UTRA. Hereby,
the UE focuses its cell search to the strongest cell on each carriers. As soon as
the mobile phone has found a suitable cell, it selects it. In contrast to the cell
selection procedure stored information cell selection, this procedure does not
require knowledge in advance, which of the scanned radio frequency bands holds
UTRA carriers.