With 5G becoming established in many quarters, the industry is now moving towards the next generation of mobile communications. Business technology journalist, Antony Savvas looks at the latest 6G developments.
Industry analyst IDTechEx has just brought out a useful report, “6G Market 2023-2043: Technology, Trends, Forecasts, Players”, which predicts that commercial 6G services could be with us as early as 2028.
I remember when the first 3G services started appearing in 2000, and grand talk of 4G at the time seemed a little ambitious, considering what was actually possible with a mobile phone and other gadgets during that period.
But the gaps between different generations of mobile technology are becoming shorter, quickly being filled by not only promises but also real jumps in bandwidth capacity and in-demand applications to use it. By the time 4G actually arrived commercially in most developed Western markets, some parts of Asia were already launching the first 5G services.
So a very modest five year wait for 6G doesn’t seem that unbelievable at the moment.
IDTechEx says 6G is expected to enable a 1Tbps (terabits per second) data rate. Power, range, frequency and noise management challenges will have to be overcome to reach such speeds though.
The analyst says 6G radios will need newly-designed semiconductors to boost link range, and they will require new materials with a small dielectric constant and tan loss to prevent substantial transmission loss.
And, to further improve transmission levels, a new packaging strategy that tightly integrates RF components with antennas is required. But, as devices become increasingly compact, power and thermal management are even more critical going forward, IDTechEx says.
Non-terrestrial
6G is also different to other previous mobile generations as it will include widescale non-terrestrial networks. Low altitude platforms (LAPs), high altitude platforms (HAPs), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and satellites are examples of the non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) being included for commercial deployments.
China sent up the world’s first 6G satellite in November 2020. And Huawei has already tested NTN 6G networks using LEO (low earth orbit) satellites.
“6G is also expected to tap into the world of sensing, imaging, wireless cognition and precise positioning,” says IDTechEx. In this vein, Apple has patented its THz sensor technology for gas sensing and imaging with its iDevice. Huawei has also tested several integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) prototypes.
All this activity is one reason the European Commission has just announced its own big play in the 6G arena.
On the Horizon
The 6G-SANDBOX, a project funded through the European Commission’s established Horizon Europe technology development effort, is enabling experimentation and validation of both 5G-Advanced and 6G capabilities and use cases.
The initiative has brought together 17 organisations, including CSPs (communications service providers), to move the next generation of mobile forward. It sees global network testing organisation Keysight Technologies act as the project coordinator.
The project aims to develop EU-wide platforms to test “promising” technical 6G enablers, including zero-touch management, flexible multi-tenancy architecture, network intelligence, security, digital twins, artificial intelligence (AI) and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces.
The project will allow organisations to conduct trials at four European locations, in Malaga, Spain; Berlin, Germany; Oulu, Finland; and Athens in Greece.
“As an open 6G experimentation environment, 6G-SANDBOX will underpin an accelerated pan-European green and digital transformation, in line with the United Nation’s sustainable development goals (SDGs),” says Keysight’s Michael Dieudonne, and 6G-SANDBOX project coordinator.
George Lyberopoulos, head of R&D for fixed and mobile business at Greek telco COSMOTE, says: “Through our participation we aim to demonstrate 6G technological advances and their revolutionary impact in the realisation of niche use cases and new markets.”
David Artunedo, responsible for connectivity innovation at Telefonica, adds: “We will lead the development and adoption of open application programming interface (API) specifications in the 6G-SANDBOX, enabling third parties to create new and innovative connectivity solutions.”
This, and other international 6G initiatives, shows the next generation of mobile is certainly not that far off at all.
Private wireless opportunities
Global cyber security vendor, Trend Micro has just established CTOne, a new subsidiary focused on delivering 5G network security to companies’ private mobile networks.
With 5G private networks offering lower latency, larger bandwidth and high-density capabilities, many organisations have chosen to adopt them. The global private 5G network market was valued at US$1.38 billion (€1.29 billion) in 2021, and was expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 49% from 2022 to 2030, according to Grand View Research.
CTOne provides security for landing applications in private 5G network environments, and promises comprehensive protection from network to endpoint.
Private 5G networks are usually considered the most secure wireless communications standard, says Trend Micro. However, with the widely-used open radio access network (O-RAN) structure, the proliferation of cloud networks, open-source software, and the wide variety of IoT devices, the 5G environment faces more cyber threats than ever, the vendor says.
“CTOne enables enterprises to secure private 5G networks against potential cyber attacks and build a high-quality industrial application ecosystem,” says Jason Huang, CEO of the CTOne unit. “In the future, we will collaborate with partners to maximise the advantages of private 5G with comprehensive security solutions.”
In addition to private 5G network end-to-end security, CTOne is also developing O-RAN (open radio access networks) and edge computing security offerings to assist enterprises in mitigating cyber risks when deploying related technologies.
It was predictable that the main providers of internet security would quickly jump on the 5G security bandwagon. It is important that telcos quickly enter the ecosystems being talked about by Trend Micro, to make sure they take full advantage of the growing security services market opportunity.
The author is Antony Savvas, a global freelance business technology journalist.
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