In telecommunications, 6G will be the sixth generation standard for wireless communications technologies supporting cellular data networks. It is the planned successor to 5G and will likely be significantly faster, at speeds of ~95 Gbit/s. Like its predecessors, these networks will be broadband cellular networks, in which the service area is divided into small geographical areas called cells. Several companies (i.e. Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei, Samsung, LG, Apple) have shown interest in 6G. China, South Korea and Japan also reportedly have interest. The 6th generation network will likely become commercially available in the 2030s.
6G networks are expected to exhibit even more heterogeneity than its predecessors and to likely support applications beyond current mobile use scenarios, such as virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), ubiquitous instant communications, pervasive intelligence and the Internet of Things. It is expected that mobile network operators will adopt flexible decentralized business models for 6G, with local spectrum licensing, spectrum sharing, infrastructure sharing, and intelligent automated management underpinned by mobile edge computing, artificial intelligence, short-packet communication and blockchain technologies.
Recent academic articles have been conceptualizing 6G and new features that may be included. AI is included in many of these predictions, from supporting AI infrastructure to “AI designing and optimizing the architectures, protocols, and operations.” Another study in Nature Electronics looks to provide a framework for research stating “We suggest that human-centric mobile communications will still be the most important application of 6G and this network should be human centric. Thus, high security, secrecy and privacy should be key features of 6G and should be given particular attention by the wireless research community.” The question of what frequencies 6G will operate on are still up to interpretation. The IEEE engineers states that “Frequencies from 100 GHz to 3 THz are promising bands for the next generation of wireless communication systems because of the wide swaths of unused and unexplored spectrum.”