PC1 Validation Marks a New Milestone for 5G Fixed Wireless Access
Samsung Electronics and Qualcomm Technologies have jointly validated 5G Power Class 1 (PC1) for 5G fixed wireless access, demonstrating a major boost in performance where signals are weakest. The lab test, conducted in Samsung’s R&D facility, combined Samsung’s fully software-driven virtualized RAN (vRAN) solution and 3.7 GHz Massive MIMO radios with a test device based on Qualcomm’s Dragonwing FWA Gen 4 Platform and X85 Modem-RF chipset. Power Class refers to a 3GPP standard that defines how strongly a device can transmit; a lower class number such as PC1 indicates higher output power than PC1.5. By validating PC1 on a cloud-native vRAN architecture rather than traditional hardware-centric RAN, the companies have shown that high-power 5G FWA can be delivered using flexible, software-based infrastructure that operators increasingly favor for cost control and rapid feature rollout.
How PC1 Delivers Up to 10x Uplink Throughput at the Cell Edge
The most striking outcome from the Samsung–Qualcomm test is the reported tenfold uplink throughput improvement at the cell-edge when using PC1 compared with the PC1.5 standard. At the physical layer, higher transmission power from the FWA device improves the signal-to-noise ratio in challenging radio conditions, allowing more reliable modulation and coding schemes and fewer retransmissions. In practical terms, users on the network periphery—such as homes in remote areas or rooms deep inside large buildings—gain a much stronger return link to the 5G base station. This directly enhances cell-edge performance, a historical weak point of wireless networks. For operators, the result is a more efficient use of radio resources: better uplink throughput means each cell can serve edge users with less overhead, which can translate into more stable service levels without immediately resorting to denser site deployments.
Real-World Impact: Video Calls, Cloud Apps and Home Broadband Reliability
The uplink throughput improvement enabled by PC1 directly targets the user experiences most sensitive to weak upstream capacity. For 5G fixed wireless access subscribers, stronger uplink connectivity at the cell edge makes high-resolution video calls significantly smoother, with fewer freezes and less pixelation when several household members are online simultaneously. Faster file uploads also matter for remote work, online education and creative workflows that involve regularly sending large documents or media to the cloud. Even entertainment services benefit: live game streaming, interactive applications and security cameras all generate upstream traffic that can easily saturate a marginal link. By boosting uplink throughput improvement where it is traditionally most fragile, PC1 technology helps FWA evolve from a "best-effort" alternative to wired broadband into a more dependable primary connection for households and small businesses at the edge of coverage.
Virtualized RAN Technology: Lower Costs, Higher Flexibility for Operators
A key aspect of this validation is that it runs on Samsung’s virtualized RAN technology rather than fixed-function hardware. In a vRAN, baseband functions are implemented as software workloads running on general-purpose or cloud infrastructure, enabling operators to scale capacity, update features and optimize resources more dynamically. Combining PC1 with vRAN means operators can deliver high-power 5G fixed wireless access without fully overhauling their physical radio sites, helping control infrastructure costs while still improving coverage and efficiency. Software-centric architectures also simplify deploying targeted enhancements—such as PC1-based profiles for rural cells or dense urban areas experiencing traffic spikes. As networks evolve to support more AI-driven services and data-heavy applications, this blend of higher device transmit power and flexible, cloud-ready RAN architecture prepares operators to tackle the long-standing challenge of poor performance at the network periphery.