Mechanisms are disclosed for improved transmission of uplink control information by a user equipment (UE) that is link budget limited. In one embodiment, the UE transmits a message to the base station indicating that the UE is link budget limited. In response to the message, the base station sends an uplink grant to the UE, enabling the UE to transmit uplink control information on the physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) instead of on the Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH). In another embodiment, the base station sends an uplink grant to a link-budget-limited UE each time downlink traffic is transmitted to the UE, enabling the UE to send ACK/NACK feedback on the PUSCH instead of the PUCCH. In another embodiment, the UE transmits a scheduling request (SR) to the base station as part of a random access procedure, enabling the SR to be transmitted on the PUSCH instead of the PUCCH.