What is 6G & When Will It Emerge?

6G has started buzzing in the world of technology. The global kick off of 6G technology took place a year before i.e.in 2019. So what is 6G?  

All such questions and curiosities that hover over your mind will be answered   here. So stay tuned to know all in and out about the 6G , 6G network and a lot more.

What Is 6G?

Technology keeps evolving and there’s a fizz about the next step in the world of communication, networking and connectivity – 6G.

6G technology (sixth generation wireless) is the successor to 5G technology where 6G networks will use higher frequencies and provide considerably much more capacity with lower latency.

6G network is yet in the early research phase and will eventually replace 5G technology in the foreseeable future.

How Will 6G Look Like?

Video Source By – University of Oulu

It is anticipated that 6G wireless technology will apparently use different frequencies to measure integration and adjust frequencies accordingly. Well, this is possible in a 6G network because of the molecules and atoms that absorb and emit electromagnetic radiation at respective frequencies which are the same for any given substance.

The forthcoming 6G will have greater implications for various industry solutions and government in critical asset protection and public safety that majorly includes:

• Health monitoring
• Air quality measurements
• Facial and feature recognition
• Threat detection
• Gas and toxicity sensing
• Helps in decision making to social credit system and law enforcement

Who All Are Working On 6G Technology?

Major companies and governments that worked on 5G, will work on 6G projects and many of them are already discussing plans. 

While we talk about countries, Japan has recently launched its 6G project with an intention to study challenges and lead standardization. 

Apart from Japan, there are multiple organisations that are working on 6G projects from across of the globe, few of which includes:

• Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute of South Korea is conducting research on Terahertz band of 6G and they envision to make this technology 100 times faster than 4G network and 5 times faster than 5G network.
• China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) is investing and monitoring the R&D process of 6G technology.
• Even Finland is committed to a 6G research conducted in The University of Oulu and they refer this research as 6Genesis. The estimation of this project is almost 8 years and they envision its development by 2037.
• How can the United States lag behind, when the 6G internet speed is in race? They plan to open up 6G frequency for Research and Development purposes once the US receives the approval from Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for conducting research for frequencies over 95 GHz to 3 THz.

Benefits Of 6G Internet Over 5G Network

Sixth Generation wireless technology is proposed to integrate advanced functionalities, internet speed, better network into existing 5G technology to meet specific goals of individuals and group goals. 6G technology include more advanced services that include:

• Artificial intelligence 
• 3D coverage framework 
• Holographic communications 
• Terrestrial and aerial radio APs 
• Cloud functionalities 
• Visible Light Communications (VLC)

Now let’s take a dive into various advantages of 6G over 5G technology:

• Incorporation of Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) in addition to 5G network; this will be integrated to all 6G networks. 
• Revolution of the healthcare industry will take place that eliminates the barriers of space and time through optimization of healthcare workflow and remote surgery.
• It solves the connection problem with cellular networks in enclosed spaces. 
• 6G supera will implement  Distributed Antenna Systems or femtocells that will resolve such issues. 
• 6G is designed to support more robust cellular connections than 5G networks.
• With high THz speed in TB/sec and very low latency, many applications can make use of 6G network and seamless technology. 
• 6G has the capacity to virtualize additional components and its implementations require dedicated hardware; this makes dense deployment in 6G feasible. 
• Wireless 6G mobile connection uses VLC that provides advantage of high speed data communication.VLC builds network security and it does not produce electromagnetic radiation.
• 6G internet speed uses Terahertz (THz) that has its own benefits like:
  • It helps to overcome the fade propagation and rain attenuation to meet network coverage requirements.
  • THz’s photon energy wave is very low that offers greater efficiency and these waves can penetrate in some special media that has less attenuation.
  • 6G internet speed with hire bandwidth is capable of offering higher communication in TB/sec.

When To Expect 6G Technology?

The new cellular 6G network has over a decade to come into the spotlight.The most awaited 6G technology is expected to launch and penetrate commercially in the year 2030.  Most telecom companies will run a trial and phone manufacturers will tease 6G compatible phones. 

Usually, the work of developing 6G technology starts a decade ago for the real implementation of a new network and that’s why 6G is in buzz since 2020, even before you have your hands on a 5G phone! 

Well, the development and progress of the new network technology like 6G wont start and finish overnight. There are spectrum licences to buy, frequency bands to debate over and certain rules and regulations to deal with and that might be the reasons 5G rollouts are unable to take a pace.

The main aim of developing 6G is to respond the increasingly distrube the Radio Access Network (RAN) and to take the benefit of terahertz(THz) spectrum that increases the network capacity and has lower latency.

There are some early discussions that have taken place to define 6G like R&D activities started in early 2020. Many issues like deploying Millimeter (MM) wave radio for 5G and here new radio are expected to be resolved for designers to address such challenges of 6G. 

Anticipation Of 6G Technology In The Forthcoming Time

Data Centres already encounters modifications due to 5G like Programmable Networks (PNs), virtualization, edge computing and many others. 

While we talk about the 6G network, it will provide the means of communication and gathering necessary information, yet a system will require Artificial Intelligence (AI), next Gen computation capabilities through HPC, data analytics and quantum computing.

However, there is also a discussion regarding “Nano core” – logical collection of computational resources  that are shared by multiple systems and networks to emerge as a common computing core that takes into consideration elements of both AI and HPC.

In 6G technology,  the need for data centres and the evolution of computing between core platforms and edge will be paramount.

Forthcoming 6G internet speed, network and overall technology expected to penetrate in the areas like location, sensing, imaging, etc and determine the vast amount of data needs to be managed by service providers, data and network owners.

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