The North American group Next G Alliance, a part of ATIS, has published a report focussing on how to manage and access spectrum for 6G. This is part of an ongoing series of reports examining the fundamental question of spectrum availability and usage in future communications. It can be downloaded here.

While this report does not specify particular spectrum bands as candidates for future use, these have been addressed in previous Next G Alliance publications.

In the past year we have seen quite a lot of movement from North America, and particularly the USA, when it comes to taking new approaches to spectrum. Last November the White House published a National Spectrum Strategy which bodies such as NTIA are working to carry out.

Strikingly, the stated aim of this publication, and others in the series, is “to establish global consensus on 6G spectrum needs from the North American perspective” – a very polite way of saying that they are trying to persuade other countries of their view. That view, according to the paper, is that sharing spectrum is very much the way forward.

Access All Areas

To some degree this may seem familiar. The USA has been unusual for its introduction of License Assisted Access, or LAA, in 4G. This was a method of using unlicensed spectrum, in certain circumstances, to augment services in licensed spectrum. The country has also used the CBRS band as a way to support spectrum sharing between different types of customer, including telecoms players, in small cell environments.

However, the scope of the concepts set out in the document goes beyond anything previously considered, diving into an evaluation of different types of sharing methods, tools, and sharing not only in a mobile-cellular context but with unlicensed spectrum, satellite, other industries and more, as well as policy and regulatory adaptations and implications.

Said Andrew Thiessen, Chair of the Next G Alliance’s Spectrum Working Group, “How spectrum is accessed for next generation communications is critical to ensuring that North America has adequate spectrum resource. There has been past work on unlicensed, shared licensed, and exclusively licensed spectrum; however, going forward, we will need to significantly evolve leveraging all three types of spectrum access to ultimately meet the spectrum needs.”

There are signs that this approach, which was once quite unique to the USA, may be more widely adopted in future. At 6GSymposium in Finland this April, regulators from across different European states were open and positive about the principle of sharing spectrum in different ways to make a more effective use of the resources available (footage of the conversation is available to access here).

Expect more detailed discussion of the issue from the likes of Thiessen, White House Deputy Advisor Anne Neuberger, the National Spectrum Consortium and others at 6GSymposium Fall, Sep 23-24 2024, which 6GWorld is partnering with Next G Alliance to hold.

Image courtesy of the Next G Alliance report.