India is in no mood to miss the 6G bus and is taking steps to secure an early toehold in the emerging global R&D action around the next frontier of fast wireless broadband technology, having been a laggard on the world 5G stage.
Local telecom standards agency, Telecom Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI) on Tuesday submitted a vision document on 6G broadband tech to the ITU-Radiocommunications Sector (ITU-R) — an arm of the International Telecom Union (ITU).
India’s local telecom standards agency has adopted “a two-pronged strategy for its 6G journey” that involves steering research to serve the country’s goals and continue engagement with global standards bodies for harmonisation of efforts.
The TSDSI on Tuesday said it had originally started deliberations through an introductory workshop on “telecom technologies for the next decade” back in January, 2020. “A study on use cases, requirements and technologies towards 6G is in progress in the Networks Study Group of TSDSI,” the local standards body said.
According to TSDSI, there will be a proliferation of diverse network types such as public, private, enterprise/industrial wireless networks, application-specific specialised networks, IoT/sensor networks, and these can be based on multiple radio access technologies.
Interoperability of these technologies will be critical, it said, to enable a ubiquitous intelligent, connected/computing environment, where diverse networks, processes, applications, use cases and organisations are connected.
Noting that accessible and affordable technologies can help bridge the digital divide, TSDSI added that future technologies must leverage networks and architectures to address issues around costs and affordability and added that “spectrum sharing or simultaneous spectrum use technologies” can lower the cost of initial spectrum purchase.
Incidentally, TSDSI’s 6G vision document comes on the heels of South Korean electronics major Samsung reportedly claiming it had achieved 50 times faster data speeds during 6G research compared to 5G.
Earlier this week, a top Samsung Electronics executive reportedly said 6G would open up a whole new world of opportunity combined with diverse emerging technologies that would shape the paradigm of emerging experiences and services.
A Samsung white paper reportedly estimates completion of 6G standards and its earliest commercialisation by 2028, and mass commercialisation by 2030.