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5G Americas’ latest white paper, Mobile
Communications Towards 2030, dives into what the future
holds for what’s beyond 5G and how it will operate in our world.
As the world is beginning to enjoy the benefits of 5G, the
“fifth generation” of wireless cellular technology, the industry
is starting to plan sets of requirements needed for its
continued evolution to 5G Advanced, as well as for the next
generation of mobile communications. With each generation of
wireless technology, the upgrade gets more complex and
challenging. As we look ahead, 6G represents an even greater
opportunity to extend wireless solutions into almost every facet
of human and machine interaction. Additional enhancements and
evolution of the current IMT-2020 (5G) technology standards have
already started, just like it has been with all the previous
“G’s”. The next G, “6G”, is still almost a decade away, but it
needs to be defined now. The industry has been deploying a new G
approximately every decade, and early discussions lead us to
expect to have an IMT-2030 which can begin deployment around
2030.
For this reason, 5G Americas continues to review “6G” concepts
from North America, Asia, and Europe and Latin America. The
industry first must understand what is missing in 5G to create a
6G vision. There will be a requirement of establishing standards
and several key technical challenges will need to be addressed.
This 5G Americas white paper details technology requirements
being discussed now by various industry stakeholders. The white
paper provides an update on preliminary work being done globally
on 6G and provides a few use cases and technologies for
consideration for the evolution of 5G towards the next
generation (next G).
From a use case standpoint, 5G Americas has identified early
specifications and requirements for some use cases. We expect to
see continued growth and demand for mobile communications
applications. Additional technologies such as edge computing,
cloud services, and network virtualization are also already
augmenting IMT-2020-based deployments and will continue to
develop as new use cases and higher demands on the network are
required. 5G and its evolution to the next G is a
transformational technology working in collaboration with other
enabling technologies to change the world of connectivity.
Moreover, the emergence of holographic communications, imaging
and sensing, evolutions of massive IoT (mIoT), smart
agriculture, and first responder services are presented in this
paper in the context of the next generation technology.
This paper further evaluates technology trends and suggests how
to enhance existing technologies towards the future evolution of
wireless cellular networks beyond the current 5G. It emphasizes
the need for extremely performant, trustworthy, intelligent,
cognitive, flexible, and sustainable wireless communication
NextG networks. 5G Americas understands that it is important to
work towards exploration of technology enablers like AI/ML in
RAN and edge, millimeter wave (mmWave) and terahertz (THz)
radio, joint communication and sensing, spectrum sharing and
coexistence, cloud native and service-based network convergence,
communication, computing convergence, and more.
It should be noted that while it is 5G Americas’ mission to
bring together advocates for LTE and 5G technologies across the
Americas, including North, Central and South America, a large
portion of this white paper will focus on specific needs for the
North American market. In particular, this white paper will
identify necessary goals for North American companies and
organizations in expanding leadership activities to further the
development of future wireless networks.
This paper addresses three main topics:
• A review of activities beyond 5G in North America and globally
• How communications will change as we move towards 2030 and
beyond, including many use cases and emerging technologies under
nascent discussion and planning stages
• How North America can continue technical leadership
5G is still early in its lifecycle and is being evolved and
enhanced through upcoming 3GPP releases while worldwide
deployment continues. As of September 2021, there are 184 5G
networks, which adhere to 3GPP standards. With unprecedented
flexibility, it is expected that 5G will deliver many years of
value to consumers and enterprises for the foreseeable future.
As the industry builds upon the great work 3GPP has accomplished
with defining New Radio (NR) and Service Based Architecture (SBA),
it will simultaneously evolve these aspects and others of 5G in
3GPP Release 17 and beyond.
If history is any indicator, technology will likely continue to
progress into another ITU-defined “IMT” into the 2030 timeframe.
5G Americas believes, as history has demonstrated, this will
probably be marketed as “6G”. ITU-R WP5D has begun development
of vision and technology trends documents.
In addition, many projects identified as “Next G” and “6G” are
already underway globally with significant leadership from the
Americas. This paper specifically discusses the current view of
potential new use cases, requirements and technologies. The
government, commercial entities, and universities in the United
States, through public-private partnerships, should actively
engage in scientific and applied research to maintain leadership
in new technologies that will underpin 6G.
While 6G is expected to revolutionize radio, network
technologies and architecture potentially based on new IMT
requirements, it is not likely that this work will appear in a
3GPP release until after Release 19 or 20. It is expected to be
ready for commercial deployment starting around 2030.
This paper is focused on the evolution of 5G radio and network
technology for capabilities not yet realized on the 5G network
and on the “Next G”/ 6G networks. Other 5G Americas white papers
have previously focused on other significant areas of 5G
development, including: Vehicular Connectivity: C-V2X and 5G,
Private and Enterprise Networks, Mid-Band Spectrum and the
Co-Existence with Radio Altimeters, Future of Voice in Mobile
Wireless Communications, 3GPP Releases 16, 17 & Beyond and
Mobile Communications Beyond 2020 – The Evolution of 5G Towards
Next G.
While users are just now coming to understand and utilize 5G,
the work to develop 6G is already underway and North America
needs to build and maintain leadership in this field. The final
part of this paper will provide overview at the steps that North
America as a region can take to achieve this leadership.
Mobile
Communications Towards 2030 (pdf) |
