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 * 6G explained


6G EXPLAINED




With every generation of communications technology, the focus of the network
changes. The 2G and 3G eras centered on human-to-human communication through
voice and text. 4G heralded a fundamental shift to the massive consumption of
data, while the 5G era has turned its focus on connecting the Internet of Things
(IoT) and industrial automation systems.

In the 6G era, the digital, physical and human world will seamlessly fuse to
trigger extrasensory experiences. Intelligent knowledge systems will be combined
with robust computation capabilities to make humans endlessly more efficient and
redefine how we live, work and take care of the planet. Even though there is
still a lot of innovation in 5G with the 5G-Advanced release of new standards,
Nokia Bell Labs has already begun the research work on 6G to make it
commercially available by 2030.

“The role of next-generation networks is the unification of our experience
across the physical, digital and human world,” says Harish Viswanathan, Head of
Radio Systems Research at Nokia Bell Labs.

“Just as the applications of today are built on the foundation of multimedia, we
envision future applications to use digital worlds as the framework. Dynamic
digital twin worlds would be accurate, high-resolution representations of the
physical world and/or representations of virtual worlds,” he adds.




HOW WILL THE 6G ERA BENEFIT US?

Literally, every single improvement in network connectivity that 5G will bring
to the end-user will get further perfected with 6G. Whether it’s smart cities,
farms or factories, and robotics, 6G will take it to the next level. Much of
that will be facilitated by 5G-Advanced, the next standard enhancements for 5G.
It comes with improved efficiency and extended capabilities and improved user
experience.

Looking at the past, it’s clear that each generation optimizes the use cases of
the previous generation and introduces new ones. This will continue to be the
case. 6G will build on top of 5G in terms of many of the technological and use
case aspects, driving their adoption at scale through optimization and
cost-reduction. At the same time, 6G will enable new use cases.

We will connect the physical world to our own human world, thanks to the massive
scale deployment of sensors and artificial intelligence and machine learning
(AI/ML) with digital twin models and real-time synchronous updates. These
digital twin models are crucial because they allow us to analyze what's
happening in the physical world, simulate possible outcomes, anticipate needs
and then take productive actions back into the physical world.

Digital twin models are already being used with 5G. With 6G, we can expect these
technologies to operate at a much larger scale. Digital twins will be found not
only in factories but also in wide area networks of cities and even digital
twins of humans which will have a major impact on the network architecture.

While the smartphone will remain a key device in the 6G era, new man-machine
interfaces will make it more convenient to consume and control information.
Touchscreen typing will gradually get replaced by gesture and voice control.
Devices will come embedded into clothing and even transform into skin patches.
Healthcare will be an important benefactor as wearables facilitate 24/7
monitoring of vital parameters.

The maturing of AI and machine vision and their capacity to recognize people and
objects will turn wireless cameras into universal sensors. Radio and other
sensing modalities like acoustics will gather information on the environment.
Digital cash and keys may become the norm. We may even start relying on brain
sensors to actuate machines.



6G will also promote sustainability in a variety of ways. By enabling faster and
lower cost per bit connectivity, it would be able to support data collection and
closed-loop control of numerous appliances. The data can be analyzed using
sophisticated tools to improve energy efficiency in industries. The advanced
multi-sensory telepresence that is created with very high data rates will reduce
the need for travel through the introduction of multi-modal mixed reality
telepresence and remote collaboration.

6G will be significantly more energy-efficient, turning off components and
scaling down capacity when the demand is lower. Energy efficiency will be a
major design criterion in 6G along with the other metrics such as capacity, peak
data rate, latency, and reliability.


THE 6G NETWORK

6G will call for a change in the way communication networks are designed.
Multiple key requirements must be reconciled: serve the massively growing
traffic and the exploding numbers of devices and markets, while also
accomplishing the highest possible standards regarding performance, energy
efficiency and strong security, enabling sustainable growth in a trustworthy
way. 

“We’ve identified research vectors that will cause disruption for 6G, but each
one of these areas will already have early precursors in 5G-Advanced, and there
will be important evolutions that we can ride on in terms of network waves,”
says Peter Vetter, President of Bell Labs Core Research, Nokia.

5G-Advanced is an important stepping stone for some of the capabilities we want
to enable at a larger scale in 6G. It will further develop 5G to its fullest
capabilities over the coming half-decade. In the 5G-Advanced era, how networks
are architected, designed and deployed will require a new level of intelligence,
one that can be managed across a disaggregated network and powered by AI and
Closed Loop Automation to cope with the traffic growth. The evolution to
5G-Advanced will also require optimal support for critical network applications,
be it via communication service providers (CSPs) or as industry grade private
wireless networks.

According to Nokia Bell Labs, there are six technology areas that will
characterize 6G.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning - AI /ML techniques, especially
deep learning, has rapidly advanced over the last decade, and it has already
been deployed across several domains involving image classification and computer
vision, ranging from social networks to security. 5G will unleash the true
potential of these technologies, and with the approaches in 5G-Advanced, AI/ML
will be introduced to many parts of the network at many layers and in many
functions. From the optimization of beam forming in the radio layer to
scheduling at the cell site with self-optimizing networks, all using AI/ML to
achieve better performance at lower complexity.

In 6G, Nokia Bell Labs expects AI/ML will go from an enhancement to a foundation
by taking a clean slate approach, where we do away with the complexity, and let
AI/ML figure out how to best communicate between two endpoints.

Spectrum bands – Spectrum is a crucial element in providing radio connectivity.
Every new mobile generation requires some new pioneer spectrum that helps fully
exploit the benefits of a new technology. Refarming of the existing mobile
communication spectrum from the legacy technology to the new generation will
also become essential. The new pioneer spectrum blocks for 6G are expected to be
at mid-bands 7 – 20 GHz for urban outdoor cells enabling higher capacity through
extreme MIMO, low bands 460 – 694 MHz for extreme coverage and sub-THz for peak
data rates exceeding 100 Gbps.  

While 5G-Advanced will expand 5G beyond just data communication and
substantially improve positioning accuracy to centimeter-level, especially for
indoors and underground facilities where satellite signals are unavailable, 6G
will take localization to the next level by taking advantage of wide spectrum
and new spectral ranges all the way up to terahertz.

A network that can sense – The most notable aspect of 6G would be its ability to
sense the environment, people and objects. The network becomes a source of
situational information, gathering signals that are bouncing off objects and
determining type and shape, relative location, velocity and perhaps even
material properties. Such a mode of sensing can help create a “mirror” or
digital twin of the physical world in combination with other sensing modalities,
thereby extending our senses to every point the network touches. Combining this
information with AI/ML will provide new insights from the physical world, making
the network more cognitive.

Extreme connectivity – The Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC)
service that began with 5G will be refined and improved in 6G to cater to
extreme connectivity requirements, including sub-millisecond latency. Network
reliability could be amplified through simultaneous transmission, multiple
wireless hops, device-to-device connections and AI/ML. Enhanced mobile broadband
combined with lower latency and enhanced reliability will improve the experience
of real-time video communications, holographic experiences or even digital twin
models updated in real-time through the deployment of video sensors.

In the 6G era, we can expect use cases with networks that have specific
requirements in sub-networks, creating networks of networks with networks as an
endpoint. Machine area networks such as a car area network or a body area
network can have hundreds of sensors over an area of less than 100 meters. These
sensors will need to communicate within 100 microseconds with extreme high
reliability for the operation of that machine system. Making networks within
cars or on robots truly wireless will open a new era for the designers of those
devices as they would no longer need to install lengthy and bulky cable systems.

New network architectures – 5G is the first system designed to operate in the
enterprise/industrial environment, replacing wired connectivity. As the demand
and strain on the network rises, industries will require even more advanced
architectures that can support increased flexibility and specialization.

5G is introducing services-based architecture in the core and cloud native
deployments that will be extended to parts of the RAN, and the network will be
deployed in heterogeneous cloud environments involving a mix of private, public
and hybrid clouds. In addition, as the core becomes more distributed and the
higher layers of the RAN become more centralized, there will be opportunities to
reduce cost by converging functions. New network and service orchestration
solutions exploiting the advances in AI/ML will result in an unprecedented level
of network automation that will reduce operating costs.

Security and trust – Networks of all types are increasingly becoming targets of
cyber-attacks. The dynamic nature of the threats makes it imperative to deploy
sturdy security mechanisms. 6G networks will be designed to protect against
threats like jamming. Privacy issues will need to be considered when new
mixed-reality worlds combining digital representations of real and virtual
objects are created.





MOVING TOWARDS INDUSTRY 5.0

In recent decades, a range of technological improvements has fueled the rise of
smart factories. Connectivity, however, has remained a major issue. 5G
jumpstarted the fourth industrial revolution with a host of modern technologies.
The march towards Industry 5.0 will receive further momentum with the widespread
adoption of 6G.

Communication and control co-design will enable lower cost and higher data rate
and increase the number of use cases. 6G network as a sensor will enable joint
communication, sensing and localization that will address the needs of
industries with a single system, thereby reducing cost.

New zero energy or battery-less devices could be enabled in 6G using backscatter
communications that will allow a massive scaling of data gathering for analytics
and closed loop control. There will be extensive use of mobile robot swarms and
drones in various verticals such as hospitality, hospitals, warehouses and
package delivery.


STEPPING UP TO 6G

The rollout of 5G and subsequently 5G-Advanced could not have come at a better
time when global resources are stretched thin. Communications technology is
going to play a critical role in boosting productivity and help pursue
comprehensive green policies. 6G will further build on the successes of 5G by
bolstering human well-being and unveiling new possibilities that we cannot yet
define or imagine.


NOKIA BRINGS 6G FORWARD

Nokia expects 6G systems to launch commercially by 2030, following the typical
10-year cycle between generations. Standardization phase 1 will likely start
from 2026 as part of 3GPP Release 20.

Meanwhile, 5G will be enhanced by 5G-Advanced, which will be a key focus for
3GPP in Release 18 onwards and power commercial networks starting 2025 onwards,
well before 6G arrives at the end of the decade.

Powered by world-renowned research from Nokia Bell Labs, Nokia has been the
forerunner in defining the fundamental technologies for the 5G era and beyond.
To make 6G a reality before 2030, Nokia is leading Hexa-X, the European
Commission’s 6G flagship initiative for research into the next generation of
wireless networks. In addition to multiple 6G research projects around the
globe, Nokia is also a founding member of the Next G Alliance, an initiative to
advance North American mobile technology leadership, and RINGS, an NSF-led
initiative in the US that will accelerate research in areas with potentially
significant impact on Next-Generation (NextG) networking and computing systems.

 


READ MORE

 * 6G era research
 * Building a network with a sixth sense
 * 6G The 6G era’s enormous capacity demands will require new spectrum and
   extreme massive MIMO
 * Trust thy 6G network: the future of communications hinges on security and
   privacy
 * In future networks, 6G radios will learn from one another
 * 5G-Advanced: Expanding 5G for the connected world




ABOUT NOKIA

We create technology that helps the world act together.

As a trusted partner for critical networks, we are committed to innovation and
technology leadership across mobile, fixed and cloud networks. We create value
with intellectual property and long-term research, led by the award-winning
Nokia Bell Labs.

Adhering to the highest standards of integrity and security, we help build the
capabilities needed for a more productive, sustainable and inclusive world.  

Media Inquiries:

Nokia Communications
Phone: +358 10 448 4900
Email: press.services@nokia.com




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