Evolving Mobile Communications from 5G to 6G (Part I)

Even while we roll out 5G networks, plans to move to the 6G vision are underway. Expected to be a reality by 2030, globally 6G will be powering the “Internet of Senses”. A fusion of the physical, digital, and non-physical worlds; in effect moving user engagement away from mobile phones and into a multi-sensory experience

By Bharat Bhatia

5G mobile communications is a national priority for India and the Government is committed to promoting a robust, scalable, and intelligent 5G infrastructure in India that should be capable of handling the massive expansion of traffic and use cases. The transition to the 5G from the current 2G/3G/4G is critical to supporting India’s Industrial development and making India Atamnirbhar. India’s own variation of the 3GPP 5G technology called 5Gi provides for Low Mobility Large cell size (LMLC) that will help connect our rural and suburban users in a cost-effective manner. This LMLC technology standard has been already been successfully endorsed by the ITU and 3GPP.

Although 5G is still in the early days of its deployment globally and is still to be adopted in India, technologists and spectrum experts around the world are already looking at what the next generation might look like. Therefore it is perfectly normal to start looking at what the future technology might include because it will take many years to visualize the next generation and develop it.

6G is expected to connect Virtual Reality (VR) and the Physical world through holographic telepresence. It is anticipated that by the time 6G is standardized, VR will become the norm, both for work and social interactions. Using VR technology with 6G high-speed gigabyte/sec communications, telepresence will make it possible to appear as though one is in a certain location while really being in a different location – for example, appearing to be in the office while actually being in the car. This can also mean virtually traveling to far-away places and telepresence among friends and family. You would experience the world where your hologram is, through very rich sensing of multiple sorts, synchronized to devices on your body for an enhanced sensory experience such as gesture, intonation, expressions, surrounding sounds, touch, feel and smell through interaction between physical and digital objects, enabled by wearable devices, such as earbuds and devices embedded in our clothing and other novel user interfaces. This 6G vision, which is being talked about globally is also being termed as the “Internet of Senses”, a fusion of the physical, digital, and non-physical worlds; in effect moving user engagement away from mobile phones and into a multi-sensory experience, aided by AR and VR. There is also a global discussion that the focus of 6 should be on tackling societal challenges such as sustainable economic growth, pandemics, and climate change.

Timescales for 6G roughly fall in line with previous generations: 1G was available in approximately the 1980s, 2G in the 90s, 3G around 2003 and 4G initial deployments started in 2008 / 2009; finally 5G in 2019 onwards.

What is 6G

In terms of a definition of what 6G might be, it is probably a little too early to give an exact definition.

What can be said is that 6G or the sixth-generation wireless communications system is the successor to 5G cellular technology also known in the ITU as IMT-2020. It is anticipated that 6G will enable much higher data rates, will have a much greater overall capacity, and will certainly be offering much lower latency levels.

While it may be too early to be specific, it is expected that 6G will be able to support sub-milli-second or even microsecond latency communications, making communications almost instantaneous.

6G timelines

Initial discussions on the development of a 5G vision started around 2012. ITU first published the 5G vision recommendation in 2015 and its 5G deployments started around 2020, which means about an 8-year development cycle and it is anticipated that it will be the major mobile communications technology up until at least 2030. The Picture below provides a summary ITU timeline from 2G to 6G:

It is thus expected that the 6G Initial deployments could start to appear in the 2030 to 2035 timescales, although this is very much a rough estimate. However these timescales for 6G roughly fall in line with those for previous generations: 1G was available in approximately the 1980s, 2G in the 90s, 3G started deployment around 2003, and 4G initial deployments started in 2008 and 2009, and finally 5G in 2019.

ITU 6G Standardization

ITU-R Working Party 5D (WP 5D) has started to develop a new draft Recommendation “IMT Vision for 2030 and beyond” at their March 2021 meeting. This Recommendation is expected to drive the industries and administrations to encourage further development of IMT for 2030 and beyond. This Recommendation will define the framework and overall objectives of the future development of IMT for 2030 and beyond, including the role that IMT could play to better serve the needs of the future society, for both developed and developing countries. WP5D had taken about 3 years for the development of the 5G vision recommendations (ITU-R M.2083). This time it is expected that this could be done in about 2 years as shown below:

WP 5D is also developing a new Report ITU-R M. which will provide a broad view of future technical aspects of terrestrial IMT systems considering the time frame up to 2030 and beyond. It includes information on technical and operational characteristics of terrestrial IMT systems, including the evolution of IMT through advances in technology and spectrally-efficient techniques, and their deployment.”

ITU WP5D has been leading this global mobile technology standardization effort for the last 30 years and has so far developed a number of Reports and Recommendations.

A partial list of these are as follows:

• Recommendation ITU-R M.1645 – Framework and overall objectives of the future development of IMT‑2000 and systems beyond IMT‑2000
• Recommendation ITU-R M.2083 – IMT Vision – “Framework and overall objectives of the future development of IMT for 2020 and beyond”
• Recommendation ITU-R M.1457 – Detailed specifications of the terrestrial radio interfaces of International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000)
• Recommendation ITU-R M.2012 – Detailed specifications of the terrestrial radio interfaces of International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced (IMT-Advanced)
• Recommendation ITU-R M.2150 – Detailed specifications of the terrestrial radio interfaces of International Mobile Telecommunications-2020 (IMT-2020)
• Report ITU-R M.2243 – Assessment of the global mobile broadband deployments and forecasts for International Mobile Telecommunications
• Report ITU-R M.2320 – Future technology trends of terrestrial IMT systems
• Report ITU-R M.2370 – IMT Traffic estimates for the years 2020 to 2030
• Report ITU-R M.2376 – Technical feasibility of IMT in bands above 6 GHz
• Report ITU-R M.2134 – Requirements related to technical performance for IMT‑Advanced radio interface(s)
• Report ITU-R M.2410 – Minimum requirements related to technical performance for IMT-2020 radio interface(s)
• Report ITU-R M.2441 – Emerging usage of the terrestrial component of International Mobile Telecommunication (IMT)

Bhatia is President, ITU-APT Foundation of India (IAFI) and Vice-Chairman, Asia Pacific, World Wireless Research Forum(WWRF)

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