The political, security and trade tensions between the USA and China have all become intertwined with one another, embroiling many other countries which are being pressurized to take sides. Nothing highlights the increasing importance of mobile communications to our world better than the way 5G has become a symbol of all these wider struggles.
In the original Cold War, there were debates over keeping GSM secure from Soviet snooping, but these didn’t make it to mainstream headlines or US presidents’ speeches. The technologies which dominated those battles related to warfare and the space race. Now, 5G is seen as one of the foundational technologies which ‘great nations’ must dominate to assure their place in the world.
While the technology rivalries of the post-war era mainly concerned the defence and aerospace ecosytems, and so were a step remote from daily life, this new wave has a profound impact on a fully commercial industry which is used by a huge percentage of the global population in their daily lives. So the ripple effect of the US-China hi-tech wars will be felt widely – by mobile operators of course, looking for new supply chains; and by mobile users, whose service pricing, choice of handsets and access to certain future innovations may all be affected.
Some of the effects are immediate, such as the domino effect of sanctions against Huawei (see separate item). Others will be longer term and more subject to change – for instance, if there is a change of president, or policy in the USA or, less probably, China. Those will include the progress of any next generation standards which involve both the superpowers, including those of the 3GPP. Will the 6G process be very different? Not because – as can be argued – the current procedures are too slow and linear in the days of cloud technologies, but because there is no longer a forum in which engineers from every nation can take part?
That will have the knock-on effect of dividing the world into two hi-tech blocs, whose boundaries may take longer to break down than their political equivalents, once operators and their supply chains, and the technologies they use, have retreated behind the walls.
That makes a discussion about 6G reasonable at this stage, even though it is clearly far too early to talk about any commercial model, when one is only sketchily defined for 5G. But the issues about how a future generation of standards and technologies will be developed and shared are important to consider.
That was highlighted last week when the US-based standards body, Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), issued a ‘Call to Action’ to ensure US leadership on the path to ‘6G’.
In a policy paper, it called for “leading companies in the ICT industry to join with government in a shared commitment that will put the USA at the forefront of technology leadership for the next decade.” It added: “By working now to align government and industry on a set of core principles and actions, the USA will be at the forefront of 6G development and deployment.”
This was the most clearly political statement in many months of jostling for position in the early 6G ‘race’ – with overblown ‘mission statements’ competing with genuine academic studies for attention, not just in the USA and China, but also more traditional centers of mobile technology innovation such as Finland and Japan.
The ATIS tub-thumping suggested a bid to divert attention from 5G – in which the USA’s self-declared race with China has led to a hands-down victory for the latter, only amplified by Beijing’s Covid-related stimulus program for 2020. After all, the 5G process started over a decade ago, at a time when the USA’s own mobile network suppliers, Lucent and Motorola, had been acquired or broken up, and even Qualcomm’s leadership in the 3GPP was diluted. At the same time, the Chinese hi-tech star was rising, and Huawei and ZTE played a significant role in standards processes and filing huge numbers of 5G-related patents.
ATIS’s thought, it seems, is that the USA needs to get in at the ground level on 6G. This will go hand-in-hand with the bid to create a homegrown US mobile industry again, by co-opting open RAN initiatives in order to lower barriers to entry for start-ups (US ones, naturally). It is calling for a collective effort to take the lead in 6G over the decade ahead, which would tear up the American rulebook when it comes to state intervention in private industry.
Perhaps the USA is thinking ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ in terms of the Chinese state support for its hi-tech industries. So ATIS’s president and CEO, Susan Miller – together with its VP of technology and solutions, Mike Nawrocki – wrote in an article outlining their approach: “Although free market principles should guide the thinking, the USA is competing with regions of the globe that greatly subsidize private sector development, violate intellectual property rights and sometimes introduce unfair trade barriers.”
Nawrocki added: “Industry and government have started collaboration to create the 6G future, but this work must be amplified now to position the USA as leader.”
Miller told LightReading: “Old models of leadership are not going to play in this new future in light of the geopolitical landscape. If the USA is really going to assert its leadership, it’s going to have to act in a new way.” She added: “Just leading with R&D is not going to support leadership with 6G. This is a place where government, industry and academia should really work together in a public-private partnership.”
In ATIS’s view, “there is no option but to move forward and take the necessary steps to position the USA as the leader in telehealth, smart agriculture, distance learning, digitized commerce and artificial intelligence. This will require deliberate, collaborative steps and an aligned commitment from government and industry.”
All this builds on a tone set by President Trump last year, when he tweeted: “I want 5G, and even 6G, technology in the United States as soon as possible. American companies must step up their efforts, or get left behind.”
And recently, the US National Science Foundation’s (NSF) started lobbying for a new National Center for Wireless Spectrum Research that would “go beyond 5G, IoT and other existing or forthcoming systems and technologies and chart out a trajectory to ensure US States leadership in future wireless technologies, systems, and applications in science and engineering through the efficient use and sharing of the radio spectrum”.
In the serious academic and industry research efforts focused on 6G, there is, for now, plenty of international cooperation behind the headlines. Most of this relates to very high frequency spectrum, above the 100 GHz which is the extreme upper limit for real world 5G, and into the so-called terahertz bands.
Some of this work is indeed being led in the USA, notably projects by Ted Rappaport, one of the most prominent researchers into millimeter wave in the run-up to 5G, in a series of efforts at New York University (NYU). Last year, he published an early paper on defining 6G radios for use above 100 GHz. Around the same time, the FCC approved experiments in spectrum above 95 GHz.
But there is plenty of work being done elsewhere too, including China, and building too many walls at this early research stage risks excluding US organizations from breakthroughs made elsewhere. In its 2019 annual report, Huawei boasted that it had started its 6G research, focused on “air interface technologies, new network architectures, and key enabling technologies”. And earlier this year, its rotating CEO Eric Xu said: “I anticipate that by 2028 or 2029 or 2030, we are going to see 6G as extensively discussed as we are seeing 5G today.”
And the other major Chinese vendor, ZTE, this month announced a strategic pact with China Unicom to develop ‘6G’ technologies and explore potential future standards. Particular areas of interest include how 6G radio technologies might integrate with satellite, while supporting massive IoT infrastructure and connected vehicles. That could go well beyond what 5G can achieve, ZTE said, by harnessing terahertz spectrum for extremely high speeds, along with emerging techniques like 3D connectivity and next generation sensing.
The vendor said it would work with Unicom to develop prototypes and verification tests, to assess the feasibility of networks that could support terabit speeds, including 20Gbps data rates to each end user, and traffic volumes of 100Gbps per cubic meter.
Unicom has already established a research group for terahertz communications, with a specific objective of contributing to standards.
And ZTE has been looking ahead to 6G since last year too, when it appointed a director of 6G research and collaboration, Dr Fang Min, who says the technology will be commercialized by 2030 and will “reconfigure the world completely”. In March this year, he told the second 6G Wireless Summit that 6G would open up “the Internet of Sense, the Internet of AI and the Internet of Industry” (which sounded like the claims made for 5G when it was still in the R&D phase).
He mentioned the same performance targets that are central to the Unicom partnership, saying: “The 6G network should be able to support peak data rate of 1Tbps, user data rate of 20Gbps, and cubic traffic capacity of 100Gbps/m3. All of these potential KPIs towards 6G networks will be achieved along the long term evolution of 5G networks.”
The key will be a fully intelligent architecture, comprising “intelligent radio, intelligent coverage and intelligent evolution”, not to mention “intelligent MIMO”. Among the specific technologies playing a part in achieving all this, he cited “3D connectivity” and “new horizon communications like terahertz, light, molecular, the brain cloud and the qubit”.
Initial 6G activities have also been seen in Finland, Japan, South Korea and the European Union, among others. Ln February, Japan’s R&D-heavy MNO NTT Docomo made the bold promise to launch a commercial 6G network by 2030, claiming it had been laying the foundations in its research for two years already.
This would use terahertz bands to bring higher speed, with ultra-low cost and power consumption, to connectivity “in the sky, at sea and in space”, the operator wrote in a white paper, released last week to set out its view of 5G evolution and 6G.
In the previous week, the Japanese government had announced plans to develop a strategy over the coming months for future 6G networks. It has appointed a panel of experts to drive this strategy, taken from the private sector and universities, and charged to examine technological development, potential implementation methods and policies, media reports said, citing a source from the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry source.
The Ministry told reporters: “As discussions on Beyond 5G are being started in other countries, Japan will be deeply involved in the international standard formulation process. To this end, it is necessary to start early on efforts to formulate a comprehensive strategy for Beyond 5G based on the needs and technological progress at the time of its introduction.”
In September last year, Finland’s University of Oulu (home of a major Nokia center) claimed to have published the first 6G white paper. This was produced by the 6G Flagship research program, based on inputs from 70 engineers and other experts who took part in a workshop at the first 6G Wireless Summit, held in March in Finnish Lapland.
The paper tried to set out the initial parameters for a broad view of what 6G might entail, including commercial and technical drivers, R&D requirements, and the key challenges and questions that need to be addressed in mapping out a 6G agenda.
Professor Matti Latva-aho, director of the 6G Flagship program, edited the paper with a colleague, Professor Kari Leppänen. Latva-aho said: “As 5G research is maturing and continues to support global standardization, we must already engage in mapping what 6G can become at its boldest.”
Many of the topics raised in the paper are little different from those set out for 5G – the need for both platforms will be driven by the need to process and consume more and more data, at every possible micro-location, and to enable fully ubiquitous connectivity. Once that is achieved, new experiences such as fully immersive ‘extended reality’ become more possible and affordable.
“Intelligence will create context-aware smart services and applications for human and non-human users alike,” says the paper – something that is frequently said about 5G.
The social-economic drivers also sound similar to those set out in many nations’ 5G vision papers. This white paper bases its 6G list on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
It also outlines new operating models that 6G could enable – but which are already emerging as part of the 5G picture. For instance, it says: “The increasing role of indoor networks will boost network sharing in cities and indoor spaces, and – especially – drive the ‘local operator’ paradigm. Stakeholder roles in 6G will change compared to the current mobile business ecosystem and new roles will emerge.”
A week later, the China Mobile Research Institute (CMRI) held a 6G workshop in Beijing.
This was the first major 6G initiative in China, with 200 attendees from vendors, start-ups and Peking University. Speakers included China’s biggest AI start-up SenseTime, augmented reality company HiScene, virtual reality firm Dgene and smartphone supplier Xiaomi.
Liu Guangyi, chief researcher at CMRI, said that while 5G would bring the Internet of everything, 6G would achieve convergence of the real and virtual worlds, with every real person and object having a proxy in the virtual world. “Human beings will be able to simulate the operation of the physical world in the virtual one and thus can make an early judgement and if necessary take action … so what happens in the virtual world can directly affect the physical world and even affect and touch the behavior in the physical world.”
Liu said 6G would also include holographic communication, smart industrial production and a tactile Internet that would include taste and touch; and enable the brain/computer interface and nano-robots that would monitor body organs.
The terahertz band:
Professor Ted Rappaport, director of NYU Wireless, says that, despite its name, the terahertz band is generally restricted, for potential commercial mobile usage, to the area between 100 GHz (where mmWave leaves off in commercial terms) and 540 GHz.
“Technically, the terahertz band is 300 GHz to 3000 GHz, but due to the molecular make up of air, the spectrum that is implied by ‘THz’ in the circuits and sensing and communications realm is, practically speaking, in the range of from 100 GHz to 540 GHz or so, and the term ‘THz’ is now being loosely used to describe frequencies ‘above 100 GHz’.”
Similarly, mmWave is technically between 30 GHz and 300 GHz, but for practical purposes, in the cellular industry, is deemed to be above 10 GHz and up to 100 GHz.