This function is highly useful for obtaining a bird's-eye view of an unfamiliar WCDMA radio environment. It will detect any WCDMA carriers (UARFCNs) that are in use on the WCDMA bands scanned. On each carrier, one cell (scrambling code) is detected and presented.

In network scanning mode it is also possible to detect inappropriate allocation of UARFCNs resulting in carrier overlap. A mobile phone in regular phone mode, once it has found a WCDMA carrier, automatically assumes that there are no further UARFCNs within ±3 MHz of the detected carrier and is therefore unable to spot overlapping carriers.