6G Is The Internet Of The Sixth Generation Of Wireless Communication Networks, Which The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Is Responsible For Standardizing The Technical Characteristics Of This Network, As In Previous Generations. 

This association tries to introduce a new generation of wireless networks to the world of technology every ten years. 6G is the successor of the fourth and fifth-generation networks, which focused on improving speed and low latency.

6G is also based on improving the infrastructure and increasing the capacity of 5G millimeter wave networks. For this reason, it uses higher-frequency radio bands to provide higher data transfer speeds and lower latency.

What Changes Does The Sixth Generation Of Communication Networks Bring About?

With this description, we must say that the sixth generation of wireless networks (6G) is supposed to replace 5G cellular technology.

6G networks can use higher frequencies than 5G networks and have much higher capacity and lower latency.

One of the long-term and essential goals of the 6G Internet is to support communications with a delay of one microsecond. To be more precise, these networks will be 1000 times faster than current networks and have a hold of one millisecond (1/1000th).

6G technology is expected to improve significantly imaging, virtual reality, virtual worlds, and location awareness. One of the critical developments in the 6G computing infrastructure is artificial intelligence’s impactful and direct role in this technology, which allows the equipment to perform the most accurate spatial calculations.

Here, the word location not only refers to the geographical location but also includes the decision about the location of information storage, processing, and sharing. Of course, it’s important to note that 6G is not yet a viable technology. While some vendors are investing in the next-generation wireless networking standard, there is disagreement about which networking products can support 6G.

What advantages does the 6G network offer over 5G?

6G networks use high radio spectrum signals to send and receive information. For this reason, it is still too early to estimate the data transfer rate based on this network. Still, Dr. Mehyar Shirvani Moghadam, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney, theoretically does not consider a data rate of 1 terabit per second for wireless data far-fetched.

Sixth-generation networks can bring about a significant transformation in communication mechanisms, as a result of which it is possible to use the above technology in applications such as brain-computer interfaces. In this regard, LG unveiled a particular technology based on adaptive beamforming in 2021. 6G allows us to control some devices through brain-computer interfaces. With the development of 6G technology, you can download 145 hours of very high-quality movies in one second. This estimate is for data that is sent over short and limited distances.

However, researchers must overcome various problems to achieve this goal, including designing new chips and optimal energy consumption. 6G uses a more advanced digital coding mechanism and wavelengths previously owned by governments and cannot be released. In addition, advanced antennas will be used for this generation.

Cellular Internet technology is primarily based on 4G, launched in late 2009. A powerful technology that, for the first time, significantly increased the speed of data transfer and allowed users to stream video files quickly and play online games with minimum delay. However, despite the prevalence of old networks such as 3G and 4G, the fifth generation is still in the implementation and development stage, and many countries have launched and operated 5G networks only in some cities.

What are the key features of the 6G internet?

As mentioned, 6G Internet, like its predecessors, emphasizes higher speed and capacity and lower latency, especially compared to 5G. This network also uses a combination of millimeter waves, which already makes it possible to achieve higher speeds for 5G so that it uses the subset of waves (mm-waves) and terahertz waves (THz).

The current technology topics are the virtual world, virtual reality, and augmented reality. 6G allows businesses and users to take full advantage of these technologies. For the above technologies to be concretely usable by all people and achieve the highest level of participation, we must increase the speed and reduce the delay time.

The astonishing speed of 6G paves the way for the practical use of intelligent technologies such as neural networks. It enables accurate simulation of objects, especially human body parts, in a virtual space.

The simulation of physical entities in the virtual or mixed worlds and augmented reality brings us closer to fully realizing a virtual world. The virtual simulation of a human, or digital copy, allows symbols and icons identical to us to be present in the virtual world. Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is also available by default in 6G networks and is considered one of its main components.

The mentioned feature will make the Internet of Things more powerful and machine learning progress faster. We must say that edge and core computing will perform better in 6G. To be more precise, edge computing based on 5G, which is spreading rapidly, will reach its total capacity in the sixth generation.

It is expected that in the sixth generation of wireless communication, it will be possible to adjust the frequency and use different frequencies according to business needs.

This level of capacity and latency will power various 5G applications and provide an excellent infrastructure for innovative applications in connectivity, detection, and imaging.

Today’s technologies, such as self-driving cars with high speed and low delay, will experience a significant transformation of these networks, and their performance will not be limited to highways. In addition, Internet of Things equipment will be used more widely in the industrial and consumer sectors.

Achieving such tremendous advances will result in large volumes of data being generated. As a result, not only the internal storage space of mobile devices will increase shortly, and cloud computing will become more critical. With the increased speed, sending and receiving data from the cloud space is possible faster. Therefore, the cloud, instead of physical storage space, will become more tangible with the full development of the fifth generation and the emergence of the sixth generation stations.

High capacity and low latency compared to 5G allow us to achieve emerging capabilities and applications based on wireless connectivity. With 6G, access points can serve multiple users simultaneously through orthogonal frequency division multiple access.

The higher frequencies of 6G enable much faster sampling rates than 5G.

In addition, they offer better throughput and higher data rates. The use of submillimeter waves, wavelengths of less than one millimeter, and frequency selectivity to determine relative electromagnetic absorption rates is expected to drive the development of wireless sensing technology a step forward.

One of the outstanding achievements of 6G networks is the full support of mobile edge computing, which 5G networks were supposed to achieve, but this did not happen. Also, edge and core computing are expected to become more integrated as part of a hybrid communication and computing infrastructure framework by the time 6G networks are deployed.

This approach will bring many potential benefits with the operationalization of 6G technology. These benefits include more efficient use of AI benefits and support for complex mobile devices and systems.

Development of 6G network by world companies

The world’s foremost companies have invested heavily in 6G networks and are working together to develop the next generation of mobile networks. In this connection, it is said that Samsung is considering the development of a 6G network operated at speed 50 times higher than 5G. The Internet of the sixth generation of communication networks is supposed to give us a higher rate of achieving wireless communication.

Higher frequency radio bands allow consumer devices to connect to networks with higher speed and less delay. In addition, the 6G Internet can support complex mobile devices and systems such as self-driving cars. This technology continues the path of 4G and 5G internet.

The Internet we use on smartphones today is mainly based on 4G; The wireless standard was launched in late 2009, but 6G is set to revolutionize the field. Meanwhile, many of the world’s users do not have full access to the 5G or 4G network.

Also, as we mentioned, it’s unclear exactly how fast the 6G network will be, as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will announce the final speed. It is still too early to judge the above technology accurately; We must wait to see the communication industry and active companies based on which standards and protocols will implement these networks. The 6G Internet is expected to be officially used in 2030, while the 5G technology is still developing worldwide.

When will the sixth-generation Internet arrive?

It is predicted that 6G Internet will be available in 2030, and it is likely that its overall implementation process will continue until 2032. Of course, before hardware products to support this technology can be marketed, the process of setting standards by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) must be finalized, which is expected to be completed by 2028.

This technology increases capacity and reduces latency by better using distributed access network (RAN) and terahertz (THz) spectrum, improving the use of shared frequency spectrum. 6G requires the development of advanced mobile communication technologies, such as cognitive and highly secure data networks.

Also, it needs to expand the spectral bandwidth to perform faster than 5G. Also, most of the problems related to the deployment of millimeter radio waves faced by 5G must be solved so that network designers can use these waves optimally in 6G. The interesting point we should mention in this context is that the research and development process on the above technology started in 2020. For example, China launched a 6G test satellite with a terahertz system in 2020 as a test plan.

In addition, Chinese tech giants Huawei Technologies and China Global launched 6G satellites in 2021. Wu Hequan, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said: “We started the field research process on this generation of mobile networks a long time ago, and it is very likely that serious research on 6G networks will begin in 2023 or 2024. Although seven years are still left until 2030, our plan to implement this project will be intensive.

Pekka Lundmark, the CEO of Nokia, claimed during his speech at the World Economic Forum that the 6G mobile phone network will be operational by the end of this decade and by 2030.

Huawei had also provided a similar date for the use of this technology.

However, Lundmark seems bullish on the future of the mobile market, and the use cases of the 6G network have different views from his peers.

At the forum, Nokia’s CEO said about 6G: “Undoubtedly, by then, the smartphones we use and know today will undergo major changes. So that some of the technologies that you see today only in scientific articles and fiction stories will be directly related to our bodies in the future. By 2030, there will be a fully digital instance of anything you can imagine, requiring massive computing resources to build.”