6G New Generations of Wireless

28 Oct 2020

What Is 6G ?

6G will be the sixth generation of wireless communications technologies supporting cellular data networks. It will be the successor to 5G and will likely be significantly faster, at speeds of ~95 Gb/s. Several companies (i.e. Nokia, Samsung, Huawei and LG) have shown interest in 6G. China, South Korea and Japan also reportedly have interest. 6G will likely become commercially available in the 2030s.

This technology is known as the high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT). The presence of this charge gives the device the ability to operate at high frequencies, because the electrons are free to move quickly through it without obstruction. Although the data hasn’t been published yet, the researchers claim it shows promising results, and, according to their plan, they will eventually test the new devices at even higher frequencies than before (140 GHz and 230 GHz, with both firmly in the terahertz range)

“It could make 5G look like 2G, but it’s not even close to reality” - Digitaltrends

It’s Too Early To Talk About 6G

The end of 2020 will see only 2% of the world’s 8 billion mobile subscriptions as 5G. But even though the vision for 5G is still far from being realized, the work on 6G has begun. The time required to develop a new generation of wireless means that work on 6G really started a few years ago.

The early work in 5G set the stage for developing a technology based on a user- and society-centric view; those working on 6G follow this example. Whitepapers from the ITU, Samsung, Docomo, and the University of Oulu describe futuristic use cases and network attributes: tactile holographic communications; precise digital twins.

Recent studies have contributed to marked progress in the 6G industry – especially as 5G is just getting started. A group based in UCSB has claimed significant progress by building a device that can speed up the process of development and save a lot of time during the design phase. They reported key aspects of the device, including an “n-polar” gallium nitride high-electron-mobility transistor, in two papers that recently appeared in IEEE Electron Device Letters.

What Design And Testing Will Be Like For 6G ?

having watched the other five generations evolve from ideas to the mainstream, I believe I can anticipate a few things:

Testing will happen in both traditional and new domains.
Test technology and solutions will evolve over time.
Complex system-level validation for the entire system will take an even bigger role than in previous generations.

it is safe to say that this will take some time. Automated mobile radio systems - those not requiring an operator or push-to-talk functionality - were conceived in the early 1970’s building upon frequency reuse concepts patented by Bell Labs in the late 1940s. NTT launched the first commercial system in 1979, followed by the Saudi and Nordic launches of NMT in 1981, and then by AT&T’s 1983 launch of AMPS in the USA. Each subsequent generation has launched at one-decade intervals

How Fast Will 6G Be?

We don’t know how fast 6G will be yet. The final standards that will define what a 6G connection is will probably be down to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The ITU nailed down the standards for 5G (which it refers to as IMT-2020) recently, but began working on the project in 2012.

ne of the most often quoted is from Dr Mahyar Shirvanimoghaddam from the University of Sydney, who claims 6G could deliver mind boggling speeds of 1TB per second, or 8,000 gigabits per second. Forget one movie downloading in a few seconds from Netflix with 5G, with 6G speeds like that, in just one second you could download 142 hours of Netflix movies.

“possible for cyberspace to support human thought and action in real time through wearable devices and micro-devices mounted on the human body.” - NTT DoCoMo

Who Is Working On 6G?

Just like 5G, most major companies and governments will work on 6G projects, and several are already talking about plans. Japan has most recently launched its 6G project, following a press conference in January 2020 where it announced an intention to lead standardization efforts and study challenges

China has officially launched research and development work for 6G mobile networks, having only just rolled out 5G. The Ministry of Science and Technology said in a statement posted Wednesday, that it will set up two working groups to carry out the task.

One group will consist of relevant government departments responsible for promoting how 6G research and development will be carried out. The other team will be made up of 37 universities, research institutes and enterprises, which will lay out the technical side of 6G and offer advice.

It doesn’t stop there. Both Samsung and LG have 6G research centers in South Korea, and SK Telecom, Nokia, and Ericsson are collaborating on a 6G research project. In its Canadian research center, Huawei is also said to have started its 6G research.

“We have parallel work being done on 5G and 6G, so we started out 6G a long time ago.” - Ren Zhengfei

6G Will Drive New Technical Demands In Five Major Areas

Next-generation radio in all bands plus the addition of bands above 100GHz. Includes new technology to improve spectral and energy efficiency <8GHz, generational improvements in 20-70GHz mmWave, and adding Sub-THz (100-1000 GHz) for communications, sensing, and imaging.
Integrated heterogeneous multi-radio access technology (RAT) systems - Seamless and intelligent use of 6G radio systems with non-terrestrial networks as well as legacy wireless systems, personal area networks, and near field communication (NFC).
Time engineering in networks: Further reduce latency, add predictable and programmable latency for precise-time applications.
AI-based networking: The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize real-time network operations and performance. Also, the connectivity and sharing of pervasively distributed AI data, models, and knowledge.
Advanced security: Pervasive application of security technology for privacy, attack prevention, attack detection, attack resilience, and recovery in a zero-trust environment.

Final Notes

For now, 5G is just beginning to get interesting, and with at least ten years to go before the first hint of a 6G network comes along, let’s enjoy some of the exciting tech 5G will bring us before then. Don’t worry, we’ll be keeping up with 6G, too, to make sure we’re fully prepared for 2030 and beyond.