Apparatus, comprising: means for identifying a plurality of user equipment, UE, each transmitting one or more uplink data streams for decoding at a base station associated with a given cell of a radio network ; means for clustering the identified user equipment into joint processing groups , each joint processing group comprising the identities of two or more user equipment as clustered; means for performing, in a first processing stage, joint processing of the uplink data streams for identified user equipment within common joint processing groups using one or more first processing algorithms to produce corresponding first processed uplink data streams; and means for performing one or more subsequent processing stages on the first processed uplink data streams, subsequent to the joint processing, to produce decoded uplink data streams, the one or more subsequent processing stages using one or more second processing algorithms, different from the first processing algorithm; characterized in that the one or more first processing algorithms comprise one or more interference mitigation algorithms for mitigating interference among the uplink data streams for user equipment within a common joint processing group , wherein the one or more interference mitigation algorithms comprise one or more of maximum likelihood and sphere decoding algorithms; and the one or more second processing algorithms comprise linear interference cancellation algorithms, wherein the linear interference cancellation algorithms comprises one or more of maximal ratio combining MRC, zero forcing, ZF, minimum mean square error, MMSE. means for identifying a plurality of user equipment, UE, each transmitting one or more uplink data streams for decoding at a base station associated with a given cell of a radio network ; means for clustering the identified user equipment into joint processing groups , each joint processing group comprising the identities of two or more user equipment as clustered; means for performing, in a first processing stage, joint processing of the uplink data streams for identified user equipment within common joint processing groups using one or more first processing algorithms to produce corresponding first processed uplink data streams; and means for performing one or more subsequent processing stages on the first processed uplink data streams, subsequent to the joint processing, to produce decoded uplink data streams, the one or more subsequent processing stages using one or more second processing algorithms, different from the first processing algorithm; characterized in that the one or more first processing algorithms comprise one or more interference mitigation algorithms for mitigating interference among the uplink data streams for user equipment within a common joint processing group , wherein the one or more interference mitigation algorithms comprise one or more of maximum likelihood and sphere decoding algorithms; and the one or more second processing algorithms comprise linear interference cancellation algorithms, wherein the linear interference cancellation algorithms comprises one or more of maximal ratio combining MRC, zero forcing, ZF, minimum mean square error, MMSE. <EOS>