6G

6G, The Wireless Evolution mapped to IMT-2030 Network 2030. A Blueprint of Modern Technology, Applications, Digital Society.

What are Market Drivers Toward the Year 2030 and Beyond? With 5G barely out of the box, you might think it’s a little early to be planning 6G. It’s not.

6G research has already begun at Virginia Tech as well as at companies like LG and Samsung. Shortly after China launched 5G in 2019, their Ministry of Science and Technology announced that they would be starting 6G research and development through the help of government departments, research institutes, universities and enterprises.

Perhaps the 6G hand was most prominently revealed when the FCC took the first steps of opening up the terahertz wave spectrum and its frequencies between 95GHz and 3THz citing that it would "expedite the deployment of new services in the spectrum above 95 GHz." So it appears that 6G infrastructure will focus on terahertz wave spectrum much the way 5G depends on the millimeter-wave frequency range that is 24.25GHz and above.

And while 5G mmWaves are capable of speeds approaching 10Gpbs, systems engineers believe the higher terahertz waves could produce incredible speeds of 1TB per second (downloading 142 hours of Netflix movies in one second).

Experts believe that also like 5G, there may be initial obstacles to overcome with 6G’s experimental use of “temperamental” terahertz waves.

The substantial increase in frequency could cause the need for antennas virtually everywhere. This has a huge implication for the current site planning and the hosting business as the trend toward increasingly more distributed service access, which started with 5G, could accelerate dramatically with 6G.

Many in the field believe it’s highly likely that wireless networks will evolve to become more of a communications mesh as opposed to the current hub-and-spoke type configuration. In this mesh arrangement, there may be a complex interconnected web of RF signals that serve as access points as well as node-to-node connectivity and backhaul for larger frequency aggregation hubs, currently known as cell sites. In this way, the future of the RAN may evolve from today’s world (e.g., dependency on legacy carrier hubs for macro WAN communications and Wi-Fi for local hotspots) to a much more distributed radio access system. It’s also likely that as 5G goes hand in hand with IoT, the 6G era will probably usher in a whole new perspective of connectivity once again.

The use cases for such high-speed low-latency networks like 6G are unclear, but besides possessing unfathomable download speeds, 6G architecture will likely focus on holographic type communications, advancements in cyber-physical fusion and multi-sense networks.

Additionally, it’s believed that the 6G phone of the future will have extraordinary new capabilities like being able to test the air around us for allergens, explosives or toxic chemicals and determine if your food is safe to eat. It will also help you see in the dark using night vision and render far better images than the human eye can see.

Just as the cellphone has replaced the standalone camera and the wristwatch for many, and is beginning to replace the wallet, 6G phones may someday replace eyeglasses through the use of goggles, which can double as headphones that have incredible imaging capability and stereophonic sound. Currently, 6G is also known as IMT-2030 or network 2030 because 6G architecture is most likely a decade or more away. That doesn’t mean it should be ignored.

Organizations that want to get a jump on this exciting new technology can learn much more in courses offered by Tonex. We will keep you current.

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