Sanil Ramachandran, director of technology at Samsung Electronics America, told RCR Wireless News that 5G PC1 technology could strengthen the position of 5G FWA as an alternative to fixed broadband services in both urban and rural markets
In sum – what to know:
PC1 validation – Samsung and Qualcomm validated 5G Power Class 1 technology for FWA using Samsung’s virtualized RAN platform.
Coverage gains – Samsung said PC1 can improve uplink throughput and extend FWA coverage by up to 40% compared to PC1.5.
AI demand – The companies are targeting growing demand from AI, AR/VR and other high-bandwidth applications requiring stronger uplink performance.
Samsung Electronics and Qualcomm Technologies have validated 5G Power Class 1 (PC1) capabilities for fixed wireless access (FWA), as operators continue looking to improve coverage and uplink performance for bandwidth-intensive applications and AI-driven services.
In comments to RCR Wireless News, Sanil Ramachandran, director of technology at Samsung Electronics America, said the technology could strengthen the position of 5G FWA as an alternative to fixed broadband services in both urban and rural markets.
“We see PC1 having a major impact on FWA commercial services. The enhancements enabled by PC1 are positioned to help FWA better support the demands of evolving technologies and services,” Ramachandran said.
Samsung said the validation was completed using its virtualized RAN (vRAN) platform, 3.7 GHz Massive MIMO radios and Qualcomm Technologies’ Dragonwing FWA Gen 4 Platform featuring the Qualcomm X85 modem-RF chipset.
Power Class is a 3GPP standard that determines how strongly a device can transmit signals. Lower class numbers correspond to higher transmission power, which can improve coverage and signal quality, particularly in low-signal or cell-edge environments.
According to Samsung, the lab tests showed uplink throughput improvements of up to 10 times at the cell edge compared to PC1.5 standards, while also extending coverage by up to 40%.
The companies said the technology is designed to address growing uplink requirements linked to AI applications, autonomous systems, AR/VR services, and other data-intensive workloads.
Ramachandran also said that the impact of PC1 would vary across deployment scenarios. “In dense urban areas, PC1 will improve uplink throughput and signal quality, enabling a fiber-like experience for high-bandwidth applications such as video conferencing, online gaming and cloud-based services. These performance improvements will reduce bottlenecks and ensure a seamless user experience, even in areas with high network congestion – leading to less latency, fewer signal drop offs, and seamless data transmission,” he said.
He also highlighted the potential implications for rural connectivity. “In rural deployments, PC1 has the potential to increase coverage by 40% compared to PC1.5, making it more feasible to deliver reliable connectivity to harder-to-reach areas. This coverage expansion enables operators to extend services to previously underserved or unserved regions, helping to bridge the digital divide,” Ramachandran said.
Samsung and Qualcomm said they have also completed field testing on a U.S. Tier 1 operator network, with commercial availability targeted for 2027.
The development comes as operators continue expanding 5G FWA offerings globally, particularly in markets where fiber deployment remains limited or expensive. Improvements in uplink performance are increasingly important as AI-related applications and cloud-based services generate higher levels of bidirectional traffic.
