As most of the technology industry is making the transition to 5G, Chinese telecom major ZTE is already in pursuit of the next era of data transfer. For this, the company recently participated in the second 6G summit, the agenda of which was to work upon the 6G research, share design ideas as well as plan the progress on its work.
Originally meant to be an on-ground event, the 6G summit was shifted to an online-only meet due to the prevalent Coronavirus outbreak. The summit saw participation from government agencies, equipment manufacturers, service operators, research institutes, universities as well as industry organizations through online video.
Among the highlights of the summit, a presentation by ZTE titled ¡°Endogenous Challenges and Innovation for 6G Services,¡± saw the company¡¯s next-gen wireless communication technology expert Dr. Fang Min predict that the 6G will be commercialized only by 2030.
As and when it does, 6G will integrate the physical and digital worlds and will have to cater to the requirements of the services in that age, which most probably, will include a much more demanding performance indicators (KPIs).
In numbers, these KPIs can be expected to be 1 Tbps peak data rate, 20 Gbps user data rate, and 100 Gbps / m3 service capacity as per a GizChina report. ZTE suggests that a transition from a 5G to a 6G network will easily be possible at these KPIs.
In his address, Dr Min confirmed that ZTE has put in place a 6G research team that is currently in pursuit of a 6G network structure. Once decided upon, the structure will be used to build the technology at par with the above mentioned performance indicators. It will further be tested for practical use.
The research team at ZTE is basing this research of the network structure on three key technical parameters - intelligent radio, intelligent coverage and intelligent evolution. The basic enablers for this are assumed to be three-dimensional connectivity, intelligent MIMO, on-demand topology, on-demand AI and new visual communication by the team.
ZTE believes that the research window for the next evolution of telecom technology is from 2020 to 2023. During this time, the company will be working on establishing a large-scale commercial network of 3G, 4G, and 5G and meanwhile, will collaborate with various entities upon the research for the 6G network.
So even with the telecom giants being focussed on 6G already, we can expect the technology to take its own sweet time for now.