Work on 6G Might Actually be Starting Later than for 4G and 5G

With 5G just launching commercially, it might seem odd that we already are hearing talk about 6G. But there is an argument to be made that, historically, the 6G process might actually have been started far later than did either 4G or 5G. 

Consider that the first 4G framework was set by the International Telecommunication Union in 1998. What became Long Term Evolution was proposed in 2004. and that early commercial deployment began about 2010. 

So 4G early conceptual work to commercialization took about 12 years, complicated by the distraction of two major alternatives, WiMax and LTE. 

For 5G, early conceptual work began about 2008. The standard was largely solidified by 2017. South Korea launched commercial 5G in 2019. The point is that the time from early conceptual work to commercial deployment took about 13 years. 

Samsung believes 6G could be available commercially as early as 2028, with widespread availability by 2020. So early commercialization could happen in about seven years, with deployment at scale in about nine years.

Many of us would expect to see early 6G deployment by about 2030. If so, then work on 6G actually is starting later than was the case for either 4G or 5G. 

So two outcomes might be suggested. On one hand, 6G might arrive later than we presently expect. On the other hand, if 6G arrives about when we expect (2030), then the development process from conceptual work to standards completion and commercial deployment will happen faster than was the case for 4G and 5G.

As one example, the NextG Alliance, formed by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) aims to “advance North American global leadership over the 5G evolutionary path and 6G early development” and will hold its first meeting in November 2020.

The NextG Alliance says it hopes to:

• Create a Next G development roadmap

• Develop a set of national priorities that will influence government applied research funding and promote incentivized government actions.

• Align development with commercialization outcomes.

Skeptics might argue it is way too early to talk about 6G. But the history of 4G and 5G suggests we might be starting later in the 6G process. If early conceptual work is just starting now, then the full development process--compared to 4G and 5G--would be compressed by three to four years.

In some ways the 6G development timeline might be easier. There were two different versions of 4G proposed and adopted commercially. That arguably slowed the development process.

5G did not suffer from that problem, but did introduce some new concerns about capital investment cost, as the addition of millimeter wave spectrum for the first time raised new issues about the number of required cell locations and the cost of "X" haul traffic from radio heads back to the core network.

6G likely will not have the confusion of two competing proposed standards or as much concern about X haul or small cells, as much of that infrastructure will have been put into place to support 5G. If so, then a more-compressed development cycle is feasible.

As 5G built on 4G, so 6G is likely to build on 5G, both in terms of infrastructure and other architectural choices. The inclusion of millimeter wave spectrum should ease issues associated with a possible move to terahertz frequencies. 

New antenna technologies to support millimeter wave signals, advanced duplex technologies (TDD), dense fiber X haul, spectrum sharing and use of artificial intelligence all should apply to 6G as well.