Crucial Conversations On the Road to 6G Standards

Each generation of cellular wireless technology evolves on roughly a 10-year timeline. Research leaders like InterDigital began planning for 6G in 2020 after the deployment of 5G's Release 15 of 3GPP standards. With six of these releases planned for 5G, and Release 18 (5G-Advanced) already published, this means we are about "halfway there" on our journey to the 6G era.

5G has rolled out quickly over the past five years, reaching one billion deployed end-user devices faster than any previous generation. With 5G-Advanced, the natural evolution of 5G, wireless networks have become more efficient, AI/ML has taken a more prominent role, support for XR technologies is improving and antennas are becoming more sophisticated with enhanced MIMO, among other improvements.

Looking ahead to 6G, 3GPP working groups have begun studying exciting technologies like Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC), which will equip devices and base station with radar-like capabilities, enabling them to better sense their environments to support enhanced network services and quality of experience. This technology will unlock further potential for XR, digital twins, and a wide range of industrial and enterprise applications including, UAVs, drones, and smart factories.

In addition, 6G will be the first "G" to include support for native AI and expand network capabilities to get closer to ubiquitous connectivity for all users and devices. In short, 6G has enormous potential to transform our daily lives at work, at rest, and at play.

At the recent 6GSymposium in Washington DC, I was honored to participate in a discussion exploring what is necessary to ensure 6G is developed to deliver truly global standards and services. While I am based in the United States, my esteemed fellow panelists mirrored the global nature of this crucial topic and represented various key regions from around the world: Javier Albares, who heads the Smart Network and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS-JU) of the European Commission; Dr. Kentaro Ishizu who directs the Beyond 5G Design Initiative for Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology; Kiran Kuchi, who serves on the board of the Bharat 6G Alliance in India; and finally the panel was moderated by Mitch Tseng, a veteran research consultant from the Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan.

Mitch and I both have leadership roles in the Next G Alliance (NGA), an initiative of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) focused on building a leadership voice for 6G in North America. I specifically serve on the Steering Committee and sit as Vice Chair of the National 6G Roadmap Working Group. The NGA works to bring industry, academia, and governments together to ensure our impact is heard and focuses on influencing initiatives like the ITU's framework and technical performance requirement development, and preparing material for use in 3GPP.

For two years, I have served as Vice Chair of the NGA National 6G Roadmap working group, responsible for shaping the 6G vision and developing the technology evolution path aligned with North American priorities. My symposium panel addressed a range of crucial conversations to be had along the road to 6G, a few of which I would like to highlight here.

Upholding 6G Standards Globally

First, it is crucial that the telecoms industry strives to prevent any fragmentation in the global standards being developed within the ITU and 3GPP. The world needs a common, global standard. It's very important for the wireless industry to take advantage of the opportunities of forums presented by global standards organizations like 3GPP to get together and have discussions, iterate until we find common goals and outcomes, and ensure we are continually collaborating, innovating, and creating technologies in service of the enterprises, verticals, and physical world around us.

There are numerous ways to illustrate the importance of common global standards, and the impact they can have. As one example, Kiran pointed out that in India -the world's most populous country - wireless technology provides the most common form of internet access, yet less than 50 percent of the country's 1.45 billion people have access to internet speeds equivalent to the 4G and 5G speeds consumers expect in North America. Developing technologies that support ubiquitous connectivity into the future 6G standard can go a long way toward providing a consistent quality of service and experience for users in a country like India, where more than 900 million people live in rural areas.

Introducing Key Value Indicators

Another critical point was raised by my fellow panelist, Javier, and is important when evaluating our 6G progress as an industry. He remarked on the importance of not only traditional KPIs, but also KVIs, or Key Value Indicators. Measuring the success of a global standard requires an understanding that there are numerous values and perspectives on what is important and thus different approaches to delivering a service. As the 6G technology evolves, it's important to explore what added value it will create for our users, beyond our traditional metrics of systems performance.

Prioritizing Industry Conversation/Collaboration

Another critical component of 6G's success is a commitment from researchers, innovators, and standards contributors to communicate and engage with the mobile industry's many stakeholders, and the various vertical industries that can benefit from the networks improvements and new service opportunities under 6G.

A recurring example of 6G's improvements is ISAC. Take drone-based package delivery, for instance. An ISAC-enabled 6G network could integrate data received from sensors on autonomous drones to help them navigate more efficiently and avoid collisions with each other or physical infrastructure, especially in dense urban areas. InterDigital conducts an array of research into advanced 6G technologies and is a pioneer of this technology innovation. My colleague Alain Mourad holds leadership positions on the Board at ETSI and chairs the ISAC industry specification group, which is responsible for identifying use cases and sensing types that will best leverage ISAC.

Beyond the potential of ISAC, drones, and UAVs, nearly every industry is poised to benefit from 6G, most visibly in security sectors through the use of connected devices and sensors, in immersive entertainment through new applications of AR, XR, and VR, in the evolution of the auto industry enhanced by 6G-enabled navigation and safety enhancements, in smart industry and agriculture, and much more.

As someone bestowed with the responsibility of helping to define and shape the 6G roadmap for NGA, I know that our place in the path to 6G depends on your perspective. From an operator and consumer point of view, the idea of 6G is still embryonic. But from a research and standards development perspective, we have made significant progress to reach the phase where our advanced research and innovations are being transformed into a set of standardized, deployable technologies, and we are engaging in critical conversations around the globe to ensure that 6G's capabilities can be used by industry, operators, and consumers to enhance and improve the ways we communicate and unlock new opportunities and services to experience.

Throughout our history, InterDigital has been a leader in wireless and video research and innovation. Our engineering teams have contributed to every generation of cellular wireless and were among the pioneers to begin working on 6G innovation roadmaps. With our heritage of research and innovation behind us, and our ongoing work to realize 5G-Advanced, lead early study items, and build upon the advanced research topics we began researching more than five years ago, I'm excited to say that we're about "halfway there" on our road to 6G. With each crucial conversation along the way, I'm more hopeful for the future 6G will bring.

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