Ericsson Uplink Booster
5G is no longer just about being first to market; instead, high performance and good coverage dominates mobile operator requirements. By exceeding service providers' needs, Ericsson’s Uplink Booster efficiently extends 5G mid-band coverage by a considerable margin.
The challenge
Service providers globally have broad interest in deploying 5G in new mid-bands (below 6GHz, Time Division Duplex TDD), which provides a good combination between coverage, capacity and latency. However mid-band coverage is still limited by uplink.
The key to achieve uplink performance depends on custom solutions on the radio domain.
It is vital to maximize the value of the new 5G bands, ensuring larger coverage and higher spectral efficiency.

Uplink Booster maximizes the value of 5G mid-band
The solution

Uplink Booster extends coverage and increases spectral efficiency
The Ericsson Uplink Booster contains a high performing Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) for NR, combined with the Ericsson Low Layer Split and Enhanced Common Public Radio Interface (eCPRI) and other Ericsson innovations.
Much of the PUSCH processing is made possible within the Intelligent antenna integrated radio (AIR) unit itself, enabling instant channel knowledge and minimal fronthaul consumption. The processing power of the Intelligent AIR and a sophisticated algorithm allows the Uplink Booster to come closer to linear receivers’ theoretical limits than any other solution, providing incredible performance with minimal fronthaul consumption. The combination of these enhancements gives greater uplink cell coverage, capacity and interference suppression.
In terms of coverage, the Uplink Booster directly addresses the usual coverage bottleneck in mid-band TDD NR, UL PUSCH (data channel, but also carries important control signals e.g. the Channel State Information, CSI). Improved 5G coverage overall enhances the efficiency of 5G mid-band deployments, allowing operators to ultimately provide better 5G coverage to end users at a lower cost and with an improved end user experience.
The benefit
The Ericsson Uplink Booster advantage is its ability to overcome traditional limits placed on cell coverage related to poor uplink signal quality. To achieve good coverage, it is important to have a strong uplink near the cell edge (or indoors) where RF signals are often degraded. The uplink coverage is extended with an application coverage gain up to 10dB, that is equivalent to an 90% increase of application coverage, and the cell-edge uplink speed can be increased by a factor of 10.
High-quality uplink radio signals provided by the Ericsson Uplink Booster also enable better downlink coverage. Combining quality uplink and downlink significantly increases overall 5G mid-band coverage.
Increased cell coverage and capacity allows mobile operators much greater scope for new business, as well as increasing effectiveness and efficiency of current network lifecycles, while establishing foundations for new technologies.