William Webb’s “The 6G Manifesto” has been published on Amazon this week, coinciding with the establishment of a LinkedIn group called 6G Reset founded by Webb, industry analyst Dean Bubley and Rakuten Symphony CMO Geoff Hollingworth.

You can put your questions to Webb together with Ken Figuredo, author of white paper “Making 6G Profitable”, in an upcoming webinar on 6GWorld.

To be clear, 6GWorld isn’t getting a penny from any sales (and probably not a great deal of love either after the last section of this review).

The 6G Manifesto does exactly what the title suggests; above all, making manifest the difficulties ahead for creating a 6G which offers value, as well as offering some very specific remedies. At 143 pages it’s a comprehensive exploration of the underlying stresses in the industry which are leading many voices to question whether another “G” is necessary or desirable at the same moment as 3GPP gears up to formulate it.

The book is structured to lead up to the Manifesto itself – a remarkably straightforward one-page document. The previous 130 pages set out why the Manifesto is necessary and how we have reached a point where this is the case.  Chapters include:

• Do we still need generations?
• Lessons from 5G
• The problems that are clearly visible
• Current 6G visions
• Assessing what the visions call for
• A better 6G vision
• How to get to the optimal outcome

Notably, Webb has taken pains to make the book readable by as many people as possible. This is far from an academic or regulatory tome. It doesn’t use unnecessarily complicated language and where possible steers away from industry jargon. There are summaries of the overall argument included for time-strapped executives. Webb is also comfortable spelling out his opinions quite clearly, with headings such as “AI-native is trendy but vague” and “Solution in search of a problem”. While most people in informed positions might privately agree, part of Webb’s ‘manifesto’ is to bring such comments and concerns to light so that they can be addressed in a public manner.

Webb’s personal history includes working within a telecoms regulator; pushing a standard through industry bodies and then managing its special interest group; taking a lead role in a telecoms start-up; and working as an advisor and consultant in multiple capacities. As a result, this book offers a useful insight into many of the structural elements of the industry we know today – the history, pressures, bottlenecks and communities that have shaped it.

As a result, it sheds a light on how the telecoms industry has reached a point where, in all seriousness, major industry bodies can say “It’s too early to think about 6G” even while its details are being drawn up elsewhere. For people who are new to the industry or want to explore where there might be new opportunities, it’s a valuable read just for that. It can help you shortcut a decade or so of learning through lived experience.

Manifesto for a different 6G

So what does Webb think? Without wishing to undercut the book sales, there are two key ideas that emerge.

Firstly, that the next generation and the service providers in it should focus predominantly on coverage and service continuity. Webb suggests a new mechanism to do this, which notably does not rely on any substantial new infrastructure rollouts or changes we might expect as a generation. The focus on coverage and consistent delivery is one which has been emphasised by operators at least as early as April 2023 (witnessed in this video). While such an approach may not be showy, this reviewer has been commenting to people for some time that, as a UK citizen, being able to reliably complete a call or connect to the internet on a train really would be revolutionary.

Secondly, the manifesto itself includes the summary: “We have not benefitted from 5G, despite being told that it will transform our lives, and we have lost faith that the existing companies and methodologies will deliver what we want rather than what some researchers believe we need. We want our voice to drive 6G in a direction that makes the world a better place.”

Who the ‘we’ is meant to be in this case isn’t quite clear – Webb’s “royal we”, disillusioned industry executives, consumers, or other stakeholders such as enterprises. Undoubtedly each set of stakeholders would have a slightly different formulation of that sentiment. Nevertheless, it’s a powerful statement that leaves little room for misunderstanding. And, as mentioned, there is now the 6G Reset LinkedIn group which appears to be a rallying-place for individuals who agree with the Manifesto.

Picking a few big nits.

There is a question about terminology which is never quite addressed explicitly, but which should be in readers’ minds, especially in the chapter on “6G visions”. That question is about what people mean by “6G”. Over time this has varied considerably, from a nebulous “Whatever comes next for telecoms in the 2030s” to a very specific “What 3GPP specifies” and all kinds of permutations in between. There is a related question of what a telecoms ‘generation’ is or should be; whether it implies a new waveform, a new architecture or other elements, a lack of backward-compatibility or other qualities.

This might seem like quibbling over a minor issue, but the fact is that everybody in the industry wants change, and change for the better. Nobody seems happy with the status quo. Even the people who say “it’s too early for 6G” are looking for innovations both in technology and business models – from AI, from APIs, from satellites, from MEC, from industries. You name it. So everybody is looking for a change for the better, whether they call it 6G or not. The only question is what that change consists of and how to get there.

Webb’s vision for 6G isn’t something that stands in opposition to what 3GPP is working on, any more than IEEE’s work on Wi-Fi precludes progress on Open RAN; it’s perfectly possible for work on both to proceed simultaneously under two different names, both of which or neither getting called 6G. The more important thing will be what gets adopted ultimately by end-users.

The other question is around the role of national and regional governments. While individual governments have not come out explicitly with “6G visions”, I would argue that much of the original impetus for today was government-driven rather than by industry. In 2021 we had the EU, US, China, Japan and other countries setting out visions for how they wanted their societies to evolve, with a focus on greater digitisation paired with reductions in digital divides, improvements in sustainability and ‘trustworthiness’ (this 2021 6GWorld article makes that clear). Much of this seems to have been a response to the pandemic, where the differences in opportunity and outcome between people who were connected to broadband (and therefore could adapt to learn, work and shop from home) and those who weren’t was thrown into stark relief.

Not surprisingly we see significant government backing for research programmes kicking off around the same time or shortly afterwards; the vision spelt out in the ITU’s IMT-2030 roadmap includes all these societal outcomes, even if vendors don’t focus on them as much as they might.

6GWorld asked Webb about this, and why there isn’t much mention of governments within his book. “My take is that governments are getting involved more because they think it’s important that they have national leadership in 6G rather than for a specific purpose. So, for example, the EU funding isn’t looking at digital divide, more higher tech. But I think 6G is still as much of a vendor push as 5G was.”

Webb undoubtedly has closer access to some of the government decision-makers than 6GWorld does, and there is no arguing that researchers will tend to try and direct funding to avenues they are working with while vendors try to encourage the industry to follow avenues they know how to monetise. However, organisations such as SNS-PPP, partially driven by the EU, are actively working to develop measures to track progress against societal outcomes. In many ways those government visions of using a new generation to deliver societal benefits aligns closely with Webb’s manifesto. If the initial impetus is being subverted by vendors, as Webb suggests, then there may be natural allies for his vision within governments and related bodies.

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay