A constant question in technology is what will be as follows. And after 3G, 4G and 5G the answer is clear: 6g. We fantasize with heart attack speeds and a more connected world, but in our Tour with Ericsson managers for the Mobile World Congress the transparency exercise was clear. They told us that, in Europe, 5G is in diapers.
Insufficient. One of the main reasons for this gap is the lack of deployment in the millimeter band (MMWAVE), an essential component to reach the speeds and ultra -tanking that 5G promises.
Compared to countries such as Japan, South Korea or the United States, we are very late in implementing millimetric band solutions. Although we are expected to talk about 6G from 2030, in Ericsson they are clear that the 5G potential has not yet been unlocked.
The European context. Europe has opted for an approach (perhaps too much) conservative in the deployment of 5g. Instead of promoting the millimeter band (24 GHz – 100 GHz) as other regions have done, most European countries have prioritized medium bands (mainly 3.5 GHz) and casualties (700 MHz).
This attends to concrete reasons, and that is that deploying in the middle and low wave allows us to offer a very wide coverage with less towers. This allows lower investment in infrastructure, in addition to being able to take advantage of a good part of the existing 4g bases.
In good part of European countries, such as Spain, Germany or France, the real millimeter band deployment remains marginal and still focused on pilot tests.
What’s out. On the contrary, countries like the United States have been betting hard for the millimeter band. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) auction a good part of the spectrum since 2019, and giants such as AT&T and T-Mobile have already deployed their MMWave networks.
Japan combines middle band and MMWave, using this last band, especially for factor automation processes and connectivity in events such as Tokyo Olympic Games.
Other countries, such as South Korea, face delicate situations. There, spectrum was assigned in the 28 GHz band for MMWave, but the operators ended up returning the licenses. There was no clear demand for services that justified the investment, and the operators found no way to make it profitable.
After the initial disaster, the government has returned to auction the spectrum, with incentives to the operators with less regulatory restrictions, more aid and the objective that the country does not stay behind in its deployment.
What about 6g. It is expected that, from 2030, let’s start talking about 6g. One of its objectives is 6G is further reduce the latency in connections and significantly increase the transmission speed. At the moment, spectrum has not been defined for this standard and the spectrum bands that will be used for data transmission are unknown.
According to ITU-R M.2160, 6G aspires to reach A 200 Gbps peak speed and stable speeds between 300 and 500 Mbps. In the same way, it aims to reduce latency up to 0.1 ms and support a traffic capacity per area in a 30 mbit/s/m2 – 50 mbit/s/m2.
A technology that will multiply speed, minimize latency and expand use cases. The problem? The 5G has been with us for more than six years, and is still taking its first steps.
What are we doing to improve 5G uses. Giants like Ericsson bet on continuing to innovate in 5G, and much of that innovation develops in Spain. The company has R&D centers in Malaga, Madrid and Barcelona, having generated more than 1,500 patents.
The company showed us how the future of 5G is quite focused on the B2B world, and how it will be possible to diversify services depending on customer demand. We have all normalized paying for fiber connection at home and paying more or less depending on the demand: in Ericsson they think that part of the 5G services will come for this same approach.
There are more and more 5G implementations with artificial intelligence
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In WorldOfSoftware | Japan already has its first prototype with 6g: the results have been a success
