Techniques for increasing narrowband physical random access channel capacity

A method for wireless communications at a user equipment (UE), comprising:

• performing an access procedure for establishing a connection with a network entity;
• and
• transmitting, as part of the access procedure, one or more repetitions of a narrowband physical random access channel preamble to the network entity, each repetition of the one or more repetitions comprising a set of symbol groups, and each symbol group of the set of symbol groups comprising a set of symbols used by the UE for transmitting the narrowband physical random access channel preamble, the set of symbols comprising a subset of symbols to which an orthogonal cover code is applied, wherein the set of symbols is multiplexed with one or more other sets of symbols associated with respective preambles of one or more other UEs.

A method for wireless communications at a network entity, comprising:

• performing an access procedure for establishing a connection with a user equipment (UE);
• and
• receiving, as part of the access procedure, one or more repetitions of a narrowband physical random access channel preamble from the UE, each repetition of the one or more repetitions comprising a set of symbol groups, and each symbol group of the set of symbol groups comprising a set of symbols for receiving the narrowband physical random access channel preamble from the UE, the set of symbols comprising a subset of symbols to which an orthogonal cover code is applied, wherein the set of symbols is multiplexed with one or more other sets of symbols associated with preambles of one or more other UEs.