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Follow the journey to future networks

Follow the journey to future networks

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

To serve as a multi-purpose platform for new and evolving services, 6G will improve both traditional performance indicators such as capacity, coverage, bitrates, and low latency, as well as new performance indicators related to service availability and assurance, predictability, network resilience and trustworthiness.

6G will support of the use of simultaneous location and mapping services capable of providing interactive 4D maps of whole cities that are precise in position and time. Such maps can be simultaneously accessed and modified by large numbers of humans and intelligent machines for use cases such as public transport, waste handling, or water and heating management systems.

Energy efficiency is an important area for 6G, both on the network side and in the device itself. This includes features such as ultra-low power AI and a new dynamic sleep and wake capability of carriers and transmission points that nullifies energy usage when not in use. On the device side, features such as wake-up signals and dynamic bandwidth adaptation will be essential to extend device battery life.

Higher spectral efficiency combined with highly efficient multi-RAT spectrum sharing (MRSS) between 6G and 5G will be key to making efficient use of limited low- and mid-band spectrum supply, as serving an exponentially growing traffic demand in a cost-efficient way.

6G networks will need to enable higher achievable data rates and lower latency in all relevant scenarios. This includes the possibility to provide several hundred gigabits per second and end-to-end sub-millisecond latency in specific scenarios. Equally or perhaps even more important is the possibility to provide high-speed connectivity with predictably low latency and a low jitter rate.

Through a pervasive AI native architecture, 6G will be defined as a platform featuring intelligence everywhere, a distributed data infrastructure, autonomous operations and network functions exposed as services through AIaaS. Exposure of computing resources to applications is also expected under 6G.

The diversity of device types is expected to increase further in 6G timeframe to serve both new and evolving IoT, mixed reality and resilient use cases. This includes potentially trillions of low power wide area (LPWA)- and zero energy IoT devices, as well as novel mixed reality use cases with new device form factors that will place new entirely new requirements on the network.

Sensing will be used for tasks such as modelling an environment, detecting road traffic and setting off an alarm when a person enters a restricted area in a factory hall. 6G networks will need to use radio resources efficiently for both communication and sensing, including scalable mechanisms for distributing the results, AI-based interpretation of results, and security mechanisms.

6G technologies

6G timeline: growing from 5G to 6G

The first commercial 6G services are expected around the year 2030, with pre-commercial trials expected from 2028 and early proof of concepts expected even earlier.

Pre-standardization work for the first 6G standard has already started based on several years of research. Learnings from live 5G networks and interactions with the user ecosystems will continuously feed into the research, standardization and development of 6G.

6G will be built on the foundation of today’s 5G Core and 5G Standalone networks – reusing, evolving and providing additions to today’s 5G core network functions where necessary and business relevant. Existing 5G Standalone features such as support for time-sensitive and reliable communication will be available to 6G devices connecting through the new 6G RAN from day one, as well as enabling a smooth evolution of other 5G Standalone features such as network slicing and quality of service (QoS).

Learn more about 5G Standalone networks.

5G Advanced is an important stepping stone in the evolution toward 6G. Several 5G Advanced technology components will the foundation for key 6G building blocks, including more advanced forms of immersive communication for human-machine interaction, RedCap devices and the evolution to zero-energy devices, and emerging AI/ML technology components that can play an important role in the fully data-driven architecture of 6G.

Learn more about 5G Advanced networks.

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 will be built on a broad layer cake of spectrum that spans today’s existing grid of low-, mid- and millimeter wave bands (mmWave), underpinned by new frequency bands in the centimetric wave (cmWave) range.

Explore more on our 6G spectrum page.

6G and spectrum sharing

With low- to mid-band spectrum in limited supply, spectrum sharing between cmWave and legacy frequency division duplex and time division duplex bands will be an essential enabler of early 6G deployments. To make this possible, an efficient, dynamic spectrum-sharing mechanism will be necessary to allow both 5G and 6G use equipment to share a common pool of resources. This is called multi-RAT spectrum sharing and it is expected to be an integrated part of 6G design from the start.

Learn more about spectrum sharing in future 6G RAN

New spectrum for 6G

Spectrum will be crucial in supporting new capacity and coverage demands on the network and cmWave bands are emerging as a particularly attractive frequency range.

Sub-THz bands may also feature in later releases of 6G. Unleashing vast amounts of new spectrum, sub-THz frequencies can enable specific future 6G use cases where extreme data rates or low latency in local areas are required. This includes professional high-resolution holographic communication and advanced machine-to-machine interaction. Learn more about sub-THz.

CmWave: 7-15 GHz

CmWave bands will underpin the vast majority of 6G deployments already from day one. With close proximity to today’s mid-band range, cmWave offers good propagation characteristics for use cases that demand wide-area coverage with high capacity.

Learn more about cmWave.

6G architecture: designing a new wireless generation

Future 6G architecture with key open interfaces between domains

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 architecture direction – the 2030 perspective

Learn more about the 6G architectural direction and what it takes to deliver future cognitive, highly automated networks on our future network architecture page.

6G network architecture – a proposal for early alignment

Learn why early alignment on a common set of 6G architectural principles is crucial to achieve the 6G vision, use cases and requirements within the 2030 timeframe.

The path forward: hybrid 5G Core network architecture

Learn more about the future hybrid core network, capable of supporting legacy 4G and 5G non-standalone devices alongside 5G standalone devices and 6G traffic.

Six talking points for 6G architecture

Our experts lay out the six key talking points for designing future 6G systems, including considerations for deployment options, network interfaces, intent-based autonomy, and exposure.

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

Selection of 6G research partnerships with academia

Explore 6G research collaborations

Ericsson contributes to the transatlantic 6G vision and roadmap

Transatlantic 6G research cooperation has the potential to bring about ground-breaking foundational technologies that can ensure technology leadership on a global level. The EU and the US are taking steps to work together in 6G research, and Ericsson is commited to take a leading role.

Hexa-X laying the foundation for 6G

Hexa-X, Europe's flagship 6G research project, unveils an extensive list of technological enablers after successful proof-of-concept assessments, paving the way for 6G development and showcasing at the EuCNC & 6G Summit 2023.

Global and groundbreaking! What the North American Next G Alliance means for 6G

5G gives us significant performance improvements in speed, capacity and latency. So why do we need 6G? In search of the answer, we explore the latest insights from the North American Next G Alliance’s report on future 6G.

Ericsson initiates India 6G program in India

Ericsson has launched its India 6G program with the formation of an India 6G Research Team at its Chennai R&D Center.

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