Last week we saw a clash of cultures and philosophies around the next generation of telecoms. In a typical scenario, the market will decide which of these becomes the dominant approach. However, the telecoms world is atypical insofar as there are bottlenecks such as the standards bodies which can limit the nature of the market. Operators use products deriving from the standards process or risk losing the network effects that interoperability can bring. This might not remain the case for long.
Revolution in China
As reported in a press release, Huawei’s Wen Tong argued in favour of a disruptive approach to thinking about the next generation, saying “6G should not be another way to implement 5G. Instead, 6G should embrace the AI revolution with a quantum leap and generate new values for the consumers. In this way, 3GPP standards can truly realize the 6G vision and create greater value for the entire industry.”
Huawei argues here that re-using the 5G core network will hinder innovation in AI.
“6G technologies should not overlap with 5G in technologies and market space. The specifications, technologies, and architecture of 6G must be based on the scenarios and requirements from 2030 to 2040. We should focus on true generational technology disruption, embrace the new opportunities brought by AI, expand the mobile industry in the next generation.”
This is an understandable position for a telecoms network vendor. While it is, in some ways, advocating for radical change at a technology level, it sits within well-established processes where very large companies tend to have an outsized amount of influence.
However, it doesn’t sit well with other conversations taking place through the industry. For example, at the opposite end of the spectrum, Proximus Group CEO Guillaume Boutin is investing heavily for long term growth where the company has no network assets at all.
The mood elsewhere tended to focus much more closely on adapting existing development processes to become both more incremental and more market-led.
FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks was just the first of several speakers at last week’s 6GSymposium to highlight the role of open networks and systems in providing an evolution path forward, creating the basis for an ecosystem which can be both more nimble and more secure.
“6G needs to be open from the get-go, so we can have more players in the technology,” agreed White House Advisor Caitlin Clarke. However, she pointed out that we should also “define what security means in 6G, so we are not chasing it after the fact” – a sidelong nod to the costs the industry has faced in removing equipment from Huawei and other companies on the country’s naughty list.
Fundamentally, though, multiple speakers took turns to underline what Cohere CEO Ray Dolan summarised as, “6G cannot be another massive hardware upgrade.”
3GPP Plus or Minus
Building the potential of software outside the 3GPP process was a recurring theme, with both Ericsson’s Mischa Dohler and Accenture’s Jefferson Wang highlighting the role that APIs could play as a part of reinventing telecoms players as providers of platform capabilities, a shift that would form part of a transition from the 5G era to 6G. This will, however, require enabling an ecosystem of users and developers around the platform itself, something which telcos have struggled to do in the past and which would necessitate a shift in mindset about the value they deliver.
EchoStar CTO Eben Albertyn pointed out that current network APIs through CAMARA are useful, but work North-South through layers of the network. In addition to this, “federation East-West needs standardisation” to enable a telco’s API-based services to work in more than one country. Which brings us around once more to the concept of telecoms providers becoming less dependent on their home territories.
The other thing it highlights is a change in approach from the ‘clock speed’ set out by standardisation through the ITU and 3GPP. Along with a change towards open networks, the move to software-based networks has highlighted the opportunities for iterative approaches to upgrades and alterations. For some capabilities, GitHub might replace IEEE or 3GPP. As Rajesh Pankaj, EVP & CTO of InterDigital, pointed out, “Not everything has to wait for a new standard.” Pankaj gave the example of open app stores in 3G; something which the telco players largely missed out on, but could have capitalised on given a different mindset.
That appetite for a different approach came through loud and clear, reflected in industry research published by 6GWorld and author Ken Figueredo of More With Mobile, which was an exploration of “Making 6G Profitable”. With inputs from a wide range of senior experts including operators on several continents, it highlights that there is a clear desire for a change in how things are done.
Indeed, conversations away from the public eye tended to even more radical concepts. One public figure who cannot be named commented that, “3GPP does what it does well, but we might need a – let’s call it a 6GPP or something – to provide a counterbalance where other industries and end customers can have a strong input.”
While Huawei’s aspiration to create radically new and improved capabilities is in many ways admirable, 6GWorld can’t help but wonder whether the press release’s messaging is closer to what we saw in 2017 when 5G was on the way. While on one level this might resonate with the technologists working on standards, it may not create a wider market response that Huawei’s PR team would like. The market clearly sees a need for drastic change; part of that will need to be within the large companies who have dominated standards in the past. It has been a golden goose for some, but unless it serves the needs of the industry today and tomorrow it may find itself sidelined.
6GSymposium footage will be available this week for viewing, while “Making 6G Profitable” is available for download now. Image courtesy of Pixlr AI image generator.
