By about 2030, standards bodies and suppliers will have gotten quite a ways down the road of preparing the next generation of mobile networks to succeed 5G. There will be claims about how “revolutionary” it might be, as we heard about 3G, 4G and 5G before.
There will be requirements for additional spectrum, as always has been the case when a mobile next-generation network has launched. The issue is how much new spectrum might be required.
And even if the general rule is that users consume more data, and therefore use more bandwidth, over time, there are some questions about the degree to which mobile operators will need to spend heavily on new spectrum, though governments who make money selling spectrum will prefer higher amounts and costlier prices.
Mobile service providers obviously will want to limit their investment in new spectrum resources. Keep in mind that they have other avenues for doing so. They can create smaller cells; they can use more-efficient radios and network elements; better air interfaces and reclaim spectrum supporting older networks that are decommissioned (2G and 3G being the best examples at the moment).
But offloading demand to fixed networks has become a huge tool as well.
Wi-Fi handles 70 percent to 80 percent of total smartphone data consumption, with the exact figure varying by region. Wi-Fi data consumption in the United States is about 85 percent to 90 percent, for example, while lower in emerging markets (around 50 percent to 70 percent), according to estimates fromCisco, Ericsson, and OpenSignal, for example.
Beyond the Wi-Fi role, technologists and operators have gotten better at using older platforms to ease the transition to a next generation of networks, even if that means not all the touted features are available. Network slicing on 5G networks requires “standalone” platforms that in many cases are lightly deployed at the moment, for example.
On the other hand, the faster speeds and higher bandwidth, plus lower latency of every next-generation network already is producing commercial revenue in significant amounts, such as using 5G platforms to support fixed wireless for home broadband.
That might not be among the futuristic capabilities 5G was supposed to provide, but it has created new revenue and product possibilities.
So perhaps some skepticism about the market “need” for 6G, and the resources needed to support it, are reasonable. Already, 6G is touted as supporting a new array of sensory information such as touch, taste and smell.
Some of us would be that if such innovations actually arrive, it will be about the time 7G arrives, as that has been the pattern for past next-generation network innovations as well: the promised futuristic apps need twice as long to reach commercial success as predicted.
So promised 3G innovations don’t arrive until 4G; 4G innovations don’t arrive until 5G. That isn’t to deny the practical advantages for each next-generation network: more capacity and lower latency.
But those improvements are akin to the need fixed network operators have to upgrade copper access to optical fiber; satellite providers to upgrade from geostationary platforms to low-earth-orbit constellations, all of which support higher capacity networks.
Mobile networks will need to continue to evolve to support higher speeds. The “revolutionary new applications and use cases” might ultimately be less important.
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