Communication technology is evolving at an unprecedented pace. The leap from 4G to 5G, and the new expectations from 5G to 6G, are not merely numerical increments but signify profound changes in the global economy driven by advancements in communication.
At the Shanghai World Mobile Communications Conference, which opened on June 26, 6G technology became the industry’s focal point. Leading companies like China Telecom, Huawei, and ZTE showcased their latest developments in 6G technology research.
Ten days earlier, also in Shanghai, the 104th 3GPP RAN meeting saw the formal freezing of the 5G R18 standard. As the first standard of 5G-A, R18 marks the beginning of the second phase of 5G, while also clarifying the 6G standard-setting process.
In his keynote speech at the MWCS2024 opening ceremony, Zhao Zhiguo, Chief Engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, expressed hope that the industry would deeply engage in 6G key technology research, laying a solid foundation for 6G standard formulation and industrial development.
The current consensus in the industry is that 2030 will be a crucial year for the establishment and potential commercialization of 6G standards. Most companies in the communications industry are setting their evolution plans with this target timeframe in mind.
01
6G Latency is 1000 Times Faster than a Blink
“What does 6G mean?” When this question was posed to various communication companies, the consistent answer was “lower latency and faster speeds.”
Compared to 5G, 6G will achieve a qualitative leap in speed, with its core advantages being higher transmission rates, lower latency, greater capacity, and broader coverage.
Theoretically, using the terahertz frequency band, 6G can increase data transmission rates to over 100 times that of 5G, reaching an astonishing tens of gigabytes or even terabytes per second, while reducing latency to sub-millisecond levels. This means real-time video transmission, remote surgery, holographic communication, and downloading dozens of HD movies in a second could become reality, providing users with unprecedented immersive experiences.
At Bell Labs (China), reporters observed a low-latency experiment based on terahertz frequencies. The standard latency for 5G is in milliseconds (achieving 1 millisecond in the lab, though typically around 10 milliseconds in real use), while the target for 6G is below 0.1 milliseconds. “Assuming a blink of an eye takes 0.1 seconds, 6G’s transmission latency is one-thousandth of that time,” explained Cai Liyu, head of Bell Labs (China).
Bell Labs simulated an industrial control system similar to laser shooting. A high-speed rotating disk with a small hole had laser transmitters and receivers positioned 50 centimeters before and after it. When the disk reached a target position, it triggered a command transmitted from the disk to the base station and then to the terminal, controlling the laser transmitter to emit a beam. If the transmitted and received digits rose synchronously, the signal transmission loop was successful; if not, it indicated a failure in reception and reliability issues.
Reporters observed that when the disk rotated at 600 revolutions per second, the digits on both sides rose synchronously and consistently, indicating stable signal transmission in the terahertz band with latency between 75 and 90 microseconds, well below 0.1 milliseconds.
In fact, latency below 1 millisecond is a critical threshold for many applications. Human tactile communication typically occurs at the millisecond level, and the time to see something and react is about 1 millisecond. Therefore, if VR devices cannot match the speed of the real world, users may experience dizziness. Similarly, for intelligent robots to avoid falling or dropping objects, their reaction speed must match human levels.
6G applications with lower latency and higher bandwidth will surpass our imagination. Once deeply integrated into various industries, it will bring unprecedented convenience and efficiency to human society. In industrial manufacturing, 6G will promote the proliferation of smart factories, enabling instant communication between devices, improving production efficiency, and reducing energy consumption. In healthcare, remote diagnostics and precision medicine will become more feasible, offering patients higher quality medical services. Education, entertainment, transportation, and other industries will also undergo significant changes due to 6G, with personalized learning, virtual reality experiences, and autonomous driving becoming part of daily life.
“6G networks will possess ultra-high intelligence and perception capabilities, achieving a new digital society and lifestyle through the high integration of people, things, and the digital world,” stated Cai Liyu.
02
Cell-Free Architecture: Everyone Could Be a Base Station
Why can your neighbor stream HD videos while you have to stand on your balcony just to make a call? Despite advancements in mobile communication to the fifth generation, cell-based networks still struggle to solve signal issues for users at the edges of coverage.
Lower latency, faster speeds, higher reliability—behind each generation of mobile communication technology lies an increase in the number of base stations. At the main forum of the 2024 Shanghai World Mobile Communications Conference (2024 MWCS) on June 26, Zhao Zhiguo, Chief Engineer of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, announced that as of the end of May 2024, China had built 3.837 million 5G base stations, accounting for 60% of the global total. Compared to the 4G era, achieving the same coverage with 5G requires three to four times more base stations. What about 6G? Will it need even more base stations?
According to on-site reports, China Telecom and Shanghai Purple Mountain Laboratory are working on a no-cell (cell-free) architecture. This architecture focuses on distributed massive MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) technology and multi-access point cooperation to break the limitations of network power consumption and uplink transmission capabilities seen in the 5G era.
At China Telecom’s 6G booth, visitors could closely observe the essence of distributed massive MIMO technology. Unlike the traditional model that relies on centralized base stations, the cell-free architecture uses a more dispersed antenna unit layout. These antenna units are tightly connected to a central processor via a fronthaul network, jointly serving terminal users. The central processor plays a core role by coordinating each antenna unit’s operation through complex signal processing algorithms, maximizing spatial diversity effects, effectively reducing interference, and significantly improving network capacity and service quality.
With enhanced equipment, 6G’s no-cell architecture enables dynamic allocation of wireless resources. This innovative architecture’s performance leap is vividly demonstrated in the booth’s figures: spectral efficiency jumps from 5.55 bit/s/Hz to 18 bit/s/Hz. A telecom staff member explained, “Previously, 5G used a single large base station, whereas the no-cell network splits this base station into multiple devices for joint signal processing, bringing the signal source closer to users. Multiple user devices can share the network within the same time-frequency resource, significantly increasing spectral efficiency, achieving seamless coverage, and balanced performance improvement.”
At the New H3C Group’s booth, reporters saw no-cell network baseband BBU (Building Baseband Unit) and RRU (Remote Radio Unit) equipment. These have proven their value in the 3G, 4G, and 5G eras and will continue to be crucial for 6G technology.
Chinese communication expert Liu Peng noted in an interview earlier this year that the BBU+RRU architecture not only transforms mobile communication network architecture but also provides the hardware foundation for TDD mode MIMO multi-antenna systems. It supports MEC (Multi-access Edge Computing) and its services through a wireless cloud architecture and will play a key role in the post-cellular era of 6G and emerging applications such as holographic communication, the metaverse, and digital twins.
“In the future, everyone could be a small ‘base station,'” explained Cai Liyu at Bell Labs. This concept, called “subnet within a network,” arises because the higher frequencies of 6G would make traditional communication technology unrealistic due to the power consumption and density of base stations. Bell Labs proposes “network sinking,” where multiple devices collaborate in transmission, greatly increasing overall system reliability. This decentralized approach connects multiple UEs (User Equipment), keeping AP (Access Point) and UE distances short, energy consumption low, speeds high, and power low. “For instance, your phone, watch, headphones, and various sensor devices could all be access nodes within a small internal network, acting as base stations themselves, enabling high-speed interconnection that’s faster and more secure than current Bluetooth,” Cai Liyu stated. He sees great potential for 6G in embodied intelligent robots, where high-speed wireless transmission of various sensor information from the robot could reduce its computing power and energy consumption.
As the 6G network standards gradually improve, the next generation of communication networks is poised to bring disruptive architecture and unprecedented communication experiences to global users.
03
Integrated Satellite and Ground Network: Every Phone Can Connect Directly to Satellites
“In the future, 6G can achieve comprehensive three-dimensional coverage across air, space, ground, and sea, breaking geographical constraints. Whether in deep seas or remote areas, the sustainable development of the economy, society, and environment, along with technological advancements, will not only greatly enrich communication applications but also provide new solutions for emergency communications, environmental monitoring, and global positioning systems,” explained a staff member at China Telecom’s booth.
Although the standards are yet to be finalized, integrating satellites and ground networks is an essential part of 6G in any manufacturer’s vision. This will ultimately create a new mobile information network that combines terrestrial networks with satellites at various orbital heights (high, medium, and low) and different airspace vehicles.
“Our 6G innovation path is compatible with the 5G system and integrates the 6G system,” a staff member at the China Information and Communication Technology Group’s booth told reporters. Currently, they are researching a unified satellite and ground system. By using satellite-mounted large-scale phased array antennas to enhance beam-hopping signals, they aim to integrate satellite and ground frequency resources and interference systems into a unified satellite-ground networking system.
In simple terms, this means placing 6G antennas on satellites. These satellite-based stations will transmit signals to ground terminals, providing seamless service to end users, allowing phones to connect directly to satellites. Unlike the existing phone and SMS services, the future satellite-ground integrated system will enable phones to switch seamlessly between ground-based 6G stations and satellite 6G stations, offering the same high-speed internet service.
In the future, the integrated satellite and ground network will not be a simple interconnection of satellites, aircraft, and ground networks. Instead, it will be a deep integration of space-based, air-based, and ground-based networks, forming a service-oriented network architecture that includes unified terminals, unified air interface protocols, and networking protocols. This network can provide information services anytime, anywhere, and in any manner. Consequently, direct satellite connections for phones, cars, and other terminals will not just be for emergency services but will become a common method for internet access.
04
6G May Arrive in Six Years
At the booths of various communication companies, 6G technology was showcased in multiple forms, demonstrating its future potential. However, many industry insiders have stated, “The 6G era will not arrive quickly; it still requires a long waiting period.” This is primarily because 6G technology has not yet formed a unified standard. The standardization process involves complex international cooperation and coordination mechanisms, requiring joint efforts on a global scale.
Yang Chaobin, Huawei’s Director and President of ICT Products and Solutions, stated during MWCS2024 that 6G is unlikely to be commercialized before 2030. The next six to eight years will still be the era of 5G-A. China Information and Communication Technology Group (CICT) also revealed their overall plan for 6G pre-research: from 2025 to 2026, they will focus on researching 6G performance requirements and evaluation methods and conducting 6G technology solution experiments. From 2027 to 2029, they will continue 6G technology submissions and evaluations and 6G system networking experiments. By 2030, the 6G standard is expected to be officially finalized.
Currently, there are technical barriers and competition in 6G technology among countries. At the Barcelona 2024 World Mobile Communications Conference earlier this year, the United States, along with ten other countries including the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Japan, and South Korea, formed the “6G Alliance.” They issued a statement agreeing to cooperate on 6G research and development, aiming to achieve open, free, global, reliable, and secure network connectivity. However, Chinese companies were not included in this alliance.
“Despite the challenges, China has already joined the global front-runners in 6G technology research,” an industry insider told reporters. The exploration and practice of 6G technology signify that human society will enter a new era of communication in the future. It will not only reshape the way people connect with each other and with things but also profoundly impact the global economic and social structure. This requires strengthened international cooperation to jointly advance the research and standardization of 6G technology.
“I believe there will still be only one 6G standard in the future,” a Chinese communication expert said. The networking complexity of the 6G system far surpasses previous generations, encompassing almost all currently available wireless systems. It requires the collective wisdom of all humanity. If there were to be a split in standards, any side would face significant difficulties.
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