6G networks
6G is the name for the sixth generation of cellular networks, expected to be ready for commercial markets by the early 2030s. Delivering extraordinary performance and a multi-purpose platform, 6G will unleash new possibilities across telecom, technology sectors, wider industry and society.
6G explained
Future 6G networks will bridge physical things, people and activities into a fully cyber-physical world where the digital and physical worlds as we know them today have merged. This will provide new ways of interacting with the world around us, new possibilities to connect from anywhere and new ways to experience faraway places and cultures. In doing so, 6G will form the bedrock of a more human-friendly, sustainable and efficient future society.
6G will build on 5G, evolving from today’s networks towards the needs of 2030 and beyond. The first wave of 6G will advance technologies and use cases already introduced in the 5G era, delivering essential support for key services and deployment scenarios from day one. This includes enhancements to network exposure, programmable networks, and use cases like enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), fixed wireless access (FWA), and the Internet of Things (IoT).
As 6G develops, new network technologies will begin to redefine service possibilities, moving networks into new paradigms of ultra lean design, limitless connectivity, integrated sensing and communication, and seamless ground, air and satellite coverage. As a result, use cases such as massive digital twinning, autonomous mobility and wide area mixed reality are all expected to break the commercial mainstream in the 6G era.
Imagine a reality where human, physical and cyber worlds interact in real time
What’s coming with 6G
6G networks will need to tackle numerous societal challenges, including demands for greater sustainability and economic resilience. They will also need to support opportunities for society and multiple industries to innovate on top of mobile networks. This includes granting access to a wider set of network services to enterprises and developers, while delivering new experiences to end consumers. New and evolved use cases will emerge that will demand more from networks. This will also lead to a substantial increase in traffic that networks will need to handle. Between 2024 and 2030 alone, total global mobile data traffic is forecast to grow by a factor of 2.5 – with a further acceleration expected in the era of 6G.
To make that possible, 6G will leverage new technological breakthroughs and apply new design concepts arising from today’s rapid technology evolution including AI, compute hardware and cloud. To this end, 6G will build on and expand further on the 5G capabilities and be better integrated into the rest of the ICT ecosystem of cloud platforms and applications.
Advanced use cases
6G will further advance the performance, service differentiation and guarantees of traditional use cases such as eMBB, FWA and IoT. 6G technologies such as synchronized distributed massive MIMO, extreme MIMO, non-terrestrial networks, integrated communication and sensing and more will contribute to an entirely new wave of use cases and devices. This is expected to include wide-area mixed reality, massive twinning, autonomous mobility, simultaneous location and mapping services, and more.
Evolution of the network platform
6G will take networks deeper into beyond-communication add-on services, making it possible for third-party developers to innovate with networks in entirely new ways. Information services such as network, positioning and sensing data, as well as new AI and compute services could all be exposed in the era of 6G. For CSPs, this will fuel new services and new relationships that can be monetized based on service differentiation.
AI-native networks
Through AI-native capabilities, 6G will take the industry significantly closer to fully autonomous network operations with zero human touch. Based on the principle of intelligence everywhere, AI workloads will be executed wherever it makes sense in the network based on a cost-benefit analysis. This will enhance resource allocation, minimize operational costs and create new monetization opportunities through AI-as-a-Service (AIaaS) models.
Sustainable by design
6G will be designed to make sustainable breakthroughs on all fronts: from improved network footprint to societal, economic and environmental benefits such as macro-economic gains, a narrower digital divide, and improvements to education, healthcare and other key sectors.
There are two sides to this journey: sustainable 6G (reducing 6G’s impacts across the entire life cycle) and 6G for sustainability (enabling use cases that create sustainable value for all).
Learn more about 6G and sustainability in our blog post: Why 6G must put sustainability first
5G vs. 6G: what to expect
Built on the foundations of 5G and 5G Advanced, 6G networks are expected to deliver much faster speeds than today’s high-speed 5G networks. This includes the capability to provide several hundred gigabits per second (Gbps) and end-to-end sub-millisecond (ms) latency in specific scenarios and under certain conditions.
6G will not only be about speed. New functionalities will expand the possibilities of the network platform even further beyond communication services, such as information, AI, and compute services. This will grant developers deeper access to a much wider range of APIs. These APIs will build on capabilities from devices and servers, multiple network domains, and services beyond just connectivity. This will make it easier to meet the high demands of applications on communications and other capabilities from underlying infrastructure.
As a result, 6G will provide a much wider range of solutions to a larger customer base compared to today’s 5G.
Why talk about 6G already?
6G use cases
6G will support a range of new and advanced cyber-physical interactions and related use cases, however this is not all expected to happen from day one.
The early phase of 6G will focus on evolving today’s 5G use cases, such as eMBB and FWA, toward improved performance and increased service differentiation and guarantees, adding value to many sectors.
As the demand for expanded IoT and critical services rises owing to increasing cyber-physical interactions, new services and applications will emerge providing rich personal experiences, relevant enterprise and application solutions, and enhancements for society in general.
Featured use cases expected in the 6G era include:
- Global coverage: 6G will deliver global internet leveraging macro cells, long range base station towers, low-Earth orbit satellites and denser deployments. Features such as spectrum sharing and micro sleep will be key to optimizing cost and energy.
- Wide-area mass-market mixed reality: 6G will support seamless integration of physical and digital worlds, offering real-time interactions and low-latency connectivity for users, machines, and infrastructure.
- Autonomous mobility: 6G will provide enhanced support for smart transport use cases, with the capabilities to provide real-time information about position, environment, and near-by road and air space users.
Learn more: Top 6G use cases you need to know
6G technologies
6G timeline: growing from 5G to 6G
6G research
6G research began several years ago and is now in the applied phase. Ericsson has played a leading role in driving the research agenda and our research outlook towards 6G lays the vision for a future network platform that can serve as a “trusted platform for intelligence, compute, and spatial data, encouraging innovation and serving as the information backbone of society”.
At MWC 2024, we showcased some key 5G Advanced and early 6G concepts straight from the Ericsson lab. In addition to network technologies, deep research is also being conducted into key design and architectural choices for 6G that will enable expected 6G use cases, as well as new service and monetization models.
6G research will continue beyond the first commercial release of 6G in 2030, paving the way for future 6G advanced networks.
6G standardization
Standardization will provide the technical foundation for future 6G networks, ensuring global interoperability and economies of scale. Commercial 6G networks will be differentiated through additional, unique features and solutions developed by technology vendors including Ericsson.
As with previous generations, 3GPP will drive standardization of the new 6G standard together with other fora such as the Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) Alliance. Work on the first 6G standard is starting during 3GPP Release 19 in 2024 with requirement related work. With 3GPP Release 21 in 2028, the first 6G technical specifications are expected to be complete. By 2030, the first commercial 6G systems are expected to be available on the markets.
Learn more: 6G standardization – overview of timeline and principles
Follow the journey to the 6G standard
6G spectrum
6G architecture: designing a new wireless generation
Future 6G architecture with key open interfaces between domains
6G network architecture will build on the ongoing trend of network horizontalization, enabling new 6G radio-access network (RAN) and evolved 5G core network (CN) functions to benefit from the fast evolution of cloudification, IT frameworks, automation, open interfaces and artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML).
6G RAN: a new radio access technology
To ensure a smooth transition to 6G and avoid market fragmentation, 6G radio access technology (RAT) should be specified in standalone mode only, with user equipment that is connected to 6G alone from day one.
Other key design criteria for future 6G RAN include the development of open interfaces between RAN and other network domains to support a healthy ecosystem, AI-native design to ensure that AI/ML can easily be applied when appropriate, improved energy efficiency on 5G RAN, and enhanced support for key verticals and deployment scenarios such as non-terrestrial access, Massive IoT and time-critical communication services from the start.
6G Core: an evolution of today’s 5G Core
An evolution of the 5G Core platform will sit at the heart of future 6G network architecture, ensuring that critical 5G Core network capabilities such as exposure, network slicing, multi-generational inter-working, and roaming can be utilized from day one of 6G rollout.
Further evolution of the core’s service-based architecture is also expected, with the goal to minimize complexity at system level when introducing new network functions common to both 5G and 6G, as well as 6G-only network functions.
Follow the journey to future 6G architecture
6G security: evolving to meet future network challenges
High-trust cyber-physical systems connecting humans and intelligent machines require extreme reliability and resilience, precise positioning and sensing, and low-latency communication. This places high demands on 6G security capabilities, but also on its ability to provide assurance that the required capabilities are in place.
6G networks must give this assurance to users and service providers in the form of security awareness and resilience, both on a deployment and operational level. On the personal level, 6G security capabilities must respect privacy and personal data ownership in a connected world. It must be powerful and yet easy to adapt to users’ preferences.
Stay up to date with 6G security developments
6G research ecosystems, collaborations and partnerships
6G will be a multi-purpose open innovation platform and will require diverse ecosystem players to collaborate and build new services at scale.
The development of 6G will build on the success of the ecosystems that built 5G, with key contributions from infrastructure providers, communication service providers (CSPs), enterprises, and application developers.
As 6G development enters a new phase with standardization, research ecosystems must align closely to ensure cohesive development across the industry. This will be vital in turning innovative technologies into standardized contributions or proprietary solutions that will shape the future of 6G.
Ericsson’s key current and past 6G collaborations
Some ongoing major research collaborations
- Hexa-X II – EU
- NextG Alliance – US
- IMT 2030 Promotion group – China
- XGMF – Japan
- 6G-ANNA project – Germany
- Bharat 6G Alliance – India
Selection of 6G research partnerships with academia
- 6G@UT (University of Texas Austin)
- MIT
- Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) and Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur)
- Princeton
