What do we know about 6G?
A sixth generation of cellular communications is in development, but is 6G really needed when 5G hasn’t achieved its full potential?
If you’re reading this article on a 4G mobile internet connection, the prospect of 6G might seem laughably distant.
It’s been six years since EE rolled out the UK’s first 5G network, promising an always-on future of instant connectivity anywhere, any time.
Sadly, the marketing hype was quickly derailed by events.
Within months of 5G networks going live across the UK, the COVID pandemic halted essential infrastructure works by forcing non-essential workers to stay at home.
The stifling of permitted dissent towards the pandemic and lockdown policies ignited a bonfire of conspiracy theories linking COVID to 5G.
Openreach engineers attempting to repairing 4G masts were abused and attacked by people who thought they were assembling 5G infrastructure designed to remotely control our thoughts.
Even after such theories were debunked, delays in rolling out 5G networks were exacerbated by concerns about the safety of Chinese-sourced hardware.
The Huawei saga typified a technology rollout in tatters.
Consequently, 4G remains the best available connection in major cities and rural regions across Britain.
Tellingly, industry regulator Ofcom only offers outdoor coverage statistics for 5G, despite measuring both indoor and outdoor 4G availability.
As such, talk of a sixth generation of cellular connectivity might seem fanciful. Indeed, it may be wholly unnecessary. Yet plans are already afoot…
Five alive
A key selling point of 5G was its potential to combine long-distance cell towers and local femtocells across different wireless frequencies, creating an always-on network.
While a distant tower broadcasting signals at 600MHz could cover hundreds of square miles, a lamppost-based 100GHz transmitter might serve a few dozen houses.
Achievable transfer speeds of 50Gbps promised to be 2,500 times faster than 4G’s real-world performance.
Needless to say, 6G is aiming to go one better, with theoretical peak data rates of up to 1Tbps distributed across the THz bands, rather than 5G’s more prosaic GHz frequencies.
The question is whether residential consumers are likely to need these speeds – or be willing to purchase/lease the multiple data hubs required to transmit 6G data at such rates.
After all, you only need a 5Mbps minimum connection speed to watch YouTube or Netflix in HD, while web browsing and social media usage use even less data.
You clearly don’t need a connection 200,000 times faster to handle today’s typical domestic internet usage – or tomorrow’s, come to that.
Could 6G be a broadband replacement?
Three years ago, we questioned whether 5G mobile data might become a replacement for wired home broadband.
That remains the ambition among 5G data providers, though 6G’s exponents will undoubtedly argue their own technology will be better placed.
A single universal network connection – at home, at the park, at the hairdresser – would undoubtedly trump today’s awkward blend of WiFi at home and 4G/5G in public.
A group of universities and research organisations are already experimenting with 6G networks, hoping to formalise network specifications before the end of this decade.
One obstacle is that higher frequencies mean shorter distances, which is why 5G also requires distant cell towers and local micro-transmitters, compared to one-frequency-fits-all 4G masts.
At THz frequencies, data would travel little further than the length of a car, though it’d do so extremely quickly.
It’s currently unclear whether private citizens would want, need or be able to pay for the hardware required to achieve such rapidity, let alone justify having such a powerful system.
In the meantime, 5G should be more than sufficient for any data transfers or internet connections – if you can actually get it…
