The timeline and history from 1G to 5G took just over 40 years since the introduction of wireless cellular technology. And a lot has changed since then.
- Cell phones have become smaller.
- Download speeds have become faster.
- Text messaging has come (and almost gone).
- Surfing the internet with phones became common.
- The steam of social media posting continues.
- And apparently, there’s an app for nearly everything now.
Roughly every ten years since 1979, each newer generation has changed how we communicate, further improving our way of life.
What is 6G?
6G (sixth-generation wireless) is the successor to 5G cellular technology. 6G networks will be able to use higher frequencies than 5G networks and provide substantially higher capacity and much lower latency. One of the goals of the 6G internet is to support one microsecond latency communications.
This is 1,000 times faster or 1/1000th the latency than one millisecond. 6G is on track to replace 5G wireless, but not sooner than 2030. For the year 2030 and beyond, many aspects of our daily lives will be augmented by ultra-high speed and ultra-reliable wireless connections, native AI, and advanced sensing technologies.
The 6G technology market is expected to facilitate large improvements in the areas of imaging, presence technology and location awareness. Working in conjunction with artificial intelligence (AI), the 6G computational infrastructure will be able to identify the best place for computing to occur; this includes decisions about data storage, processing and sharing.
It’s hard to say what 6G will look like—after all, it doesn’t exist yet. 6G shall be a fully integrated, internet-based system that allows for instantaneous communications between consumers, devices, vehicles, and the surrounding environment.
6G will have big implications for many government and industry approaches to public safety and critical asset protection, such as the following:
- Threat detection
- Health monitoring
- Feature and facial recognition
- Decision-making in areas like law enforcement and social credit systems
- Air quality measurements
- Gas and toxicity sensing
- Autonomous vehicles
- Sensory interfaces that feel like real life.
- Virtual reality (VR)
- Augmented reality (AV)
- Blockchain technologies.
Do we even need 6G?
There are a number of reasons we need 6G technology. They include the following:
- Technology convergence. The sixth generation of cellular networks will integrate previously disparate technologies, such as deep learning and big data analytics. The introduction of 5G has paved the way for much of this convergence.
- Edge computing. The need to deploy edge computing to ensure overall throughput and low latency for ultrareliable, low-latency communications solutions is an important driver of 6G.
- Internet of things (IoT). Another driving force is the need to support machine-to-machine communication in IoT.
- High-performance computing (HPC). A strong relationship has been identified between 6G and HPC. While edge computing resources will handle some of the IoT and mobile technology data, much of it will require more centralized HPC resources to do the processing.
Who is working on 6G technology?
The race to 6G is drawing the attention of many industry players. China has a satellite deployed exclusively for 6G research and a robust government policy of leapfrogging in the adoption of new technology and creating huge companies to do it. Major infrastructure companies, such as Qualcomm, Apple, Google, Huawei, Nokia and Samsung, have signaled that they have 6G R&D in the works.
The race to reach 5G may end up looking minor when compared with the competition to see which companies and countries dominate the 6G market and its related applications and services.
The major projects underway include the following:
- The University of Oulu in Finland has launched the 6Genesis research project to develop a 6G vision for 2030. The university has also signed a collaboration agreement with Japan's Beyond 5G Promotion Consortium to coordinate the work of the Finnish 6G Flagship research on 6G technologies.
- South Korea's Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute is conducting research on the terahertz frequency band for 6G. It envisions data speeds 100 times faster than 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) networks and five times faster than 5G networks.
- China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is investing in and monitoring 6G R&D in the country.
- The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2020 opened up 6G frequency for spectrum testing for frequencies over 95 gigahertz (GHz) to 3 THz.
- Hexa-X is a European consortium of academic and industry leaders working to advance 6G standards research. Finnish communications company Nokia is leading that project, which also includes Ericsson, a Swedish operator, and TIM in Italy.
- Osaka University in Japan and Australia's Adelaide University researchers have developed a silicon-based microchip with a special multiplex to divide data and enable more efficient management of terahertz waves. During testing, researchers claimed the device transmitted data at 11 gigabits per second compared to 5G's theoretical limit of 10 Gbps of 5G.
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. With 6G on the horizon in 2030 or later, we’ll have more information as the technology develops and progresses.
