Preparing for a 6G wireless world: Exciting changes coming to the wireless industry | Ep. 103
even though many 5G Wireless deployments are still in progress around the world many in the industry are turning their thoughts to 6G Wireless and what it could mean for applications devices and future Technologies despite estimates that 6G won't be widespread until 2030 there's still a lot to learn about the technology we're going to talk about 6G and what consumers can expect on this episode of today in [Music] Tech welcome to today in Tech I'm Keith Shaw joining me on the show today is Jack gold he is the president in principal analyst for J Gold Associates welcome back to the show Jack always good to have you here thanks Keith good to be here uh you are right in the thick of all of the stuff that's going on with 6G right like I think you just got back from a symposium down in Washington DC um when when you told me about this I was like Wow 6G it's like that's that's coming uh it is you know and and and it's kind of under the covers right now because we don't really expect it until as you said about 2030 usually a decade between um old G and new G or next G uh but uh people are working on it right now and we're GNA probably see U some sort of 6G effort in the probably two to threee time frame so 06 07 08 kind of of time frame okay uh and and and that's pretty typical we did we saw the same thing with five because we saw um you know some some preliminary uh instances of of 5G takeoff well before it was deployed to the world yeah okay let's um let's jump into a little bit of the overview for for those viewers that might not uh you know follow it as much as you do uh or if they're not as technically into the technology as much as as we are um can you give me an overview of the the types of things that we'll be seeing with G uh we can go into some some estimated speeds and feeds and things like that or and then I want to talk about some of the applications so um what are the big highlights of of what's going to happen with 6G compared to what we've got now with 5G yeah you know that to be honest that's still TVD uh a lot of what we're going to get with 6G uh is is yet to be determined uh and it's going to depend on a number of things so number one of course is always Spectrum the more Spectrum the higher the speed um question is where are we going to find Spectrum so people are looking at at at terahertz and and really really high frequencies um that's one area where we can expand some uh some of the um the spectrum that we need but the other area and this is going to be a big area uh in in in 6G is going to be uh Spectrum sharing and and that's really uh thinking about it well think about it this way um in a real world EX example you know you're you're driving to wherever you're driving to you're driving to the airport you're driving your kids to school and you want to take the the best route possible and you get on ways and ways looks at what's going on from a traffic perspective and picks the best road for you to get there uh we're going to see a similar kind of capability in 6G where spectrum is shared with the military shared with satellites shared with all kinds of things maybe even shared with TV signals um and and you're going to need a a significant amount of AI based uh capability to make all that happen and that's where that's I think where a lot of the work we're seeing take place right now is is is is going on behind the scenes uh the other area that I think will be very important is uh a lot of 6G capabilities that we're talking about will be around quality of service will be around more of the network slicing kinds of capabilities that we're talking about in 5G now and a lot of it will help carriers be more efficient uh and and the reason that's important from a consumer perspective is if they're more efficient and using the Spectrum then in theory at least uh they should be able to lower their overall costs and lower my overall costs for subscription services so uh it's it's still an evolving um situation there isn't a lot yet to uh hang your hat on around 6G uh but we'll see we're probably going to see more in the next couple of years uh as this gets uh redefined so Jack from an applications perspective what uh can we expect yeah so you you'll see more of the same uh that we're seeing in 5G but more of more of the same uh and and what I mean by that is it's still going to be a quality of service issue we're still going to want to do um better job a better job of of for for some applications of making sure they get connected and and and aren't overloaded by by you know 3,000 Twitter users or ex users these days um so that's from a safety perspective for instance uh you know fire police ambulance services um you're going to see a lot more iot capability uh and that's going to be uh because we're going to be able to slice the networks even more finely than we can with 5G and in fact for in most cases um Network slicing which was which was going to be a major promise of 5G hasn't really taken place because a lot of the network operators don't have an updated core Network that they can make it work with right now T-Mobile is doing a lot in that space But in Verizon starting to and at AT&T are starting to in this country and of course there's stuff going on in Europe as well but uh that requires a complete redo of the the um the core Network and a lot of 5G in in in this country especially and in other parts of the world are still based on an LTE core Network which which doesn't give you all the capabilities so you'll see those kinds of of of situations um you're going to see a lot more um uh Edge uh capability um we're starting to see some of that with 5G but 6G will bring a lot more of that online because as they update update their networks uh the carriers will be able to put local processing capability at at the edge whether that's at the Tower or whether that's at a you know a central point that will uh push applications towards us uh you'll see arvr kinds of situations where you need a lot more um the issue with with arvr really is is latency right you've got to get it below it at least 10 uh uh uh milliseconds but probably more like five or or three milliseconds to really you know not give me a headache for using it so those are some of the applications we're going to see and there going to be a lot of other things um um you know car stuff C2 VX will be coming on on board uh you know millimeter wave will be extended to terahertz wave um and and so it it there's a lot of stuff that people are talking about uh we'll we'll still have to see where where it all all shakes out yeah on the on the Spectrum sharing part um is that a pro is that going to be a problem if they have to share spectrum because anytime you hear the the the sharing of spectrum you just start thinking of interference and potential problems there but is it is it more that technology can fix it for the for the sharing part um I'm also hearing things about Artificial Intelligence being used in within the network absolutely so AI is going to be a huge component of 6G across the board it's already started in 5G uh there are uses for AI for uh traffic management for for being able to turn parts of the network on and off when it's not being used to keep power down to make it more green uh we're going to see a lot more of that uh but but clearly AI is going to be a major component in frequency sharing and Spectrum sharing uh because it needs to be very fast and very efficient it also needs to be able to monitor what's going on so you see a lot more monitoring of network in theory network sharing Spectrum sharing can be problematic right if if you're trying to do something and know it's I don't know a military system radar um that's trying to find an incoming missile or something uh you you can't afford to share Network and not not have it when you need it yeah uh or or or you're you're an aircraft you know your commercial aircraft United or American or Delta or jet blue flying o over Boston you you you can't uh not have the network available so a lot of it is going to be in determining through AI how well we can actually share the network and and I think what you'll see is that the government will get involved with this all governments not just the us but around the world will get involved and say okay we really need to have you know a a 99.999% uh assurance that you're not going to screw something else up uh and that's where AI comes in can we achieve that yet to be seen right um yeah so what I've noticed on 5G for example too is that there was a survey out that a lot of consumers don't necessarily understand 5G or feel like they're they're getting any benefits from it uh it did feel like that 5G was one of those technologies that was aimed more for businesses and and large companies for or industrial applications um are we going to see a switch back to Consumer focused and consumer heavy uh applications for for 6G or is it going to be more more of the same that that we got from 5G I I think it'll be honestly I think it'll be more of the same one of the problems with 5G from a consumer's perspective is that the carriers really didn't roll out 5G very efficiently very effectively there are a lot of consumers that were getting all they needed from LTE from 4G and then you roll out 5G and and I don't notice any benefit what is it doing for me will will my text send any faster no will I be able to to see Instagram faster no Tik Tok will work about the same so I think that's what you're you're you're seeing 5G does have benefits for the carriers right um and and and the consumers if you're doing really data heavy applications arvr applications for instance you couldn't do on 4G yeah um some video you could you probably couldn't do um Zoom video would have been fine but you know some some heavy duty uh video kinds of things um so the the real issue is it's in 5G to a lot of consumers has has been invisible it it you tell me I've got 5G and that's great but what is it doing for me that I wasn't doing before right and I think the the biggest thing I've seen with some of the marketing materials that I get or or some of the stats I see is 5G for Home wireless so it almost is like 5G for home broadband you know going up against fiber optic or DSL or those types of of broadband connections for the home I have seen a big push for fixed wireless access uh with 5G and so I would imagine that would also then um carry over to the 6G as well but from a consumer standpoint if I've already got a good broadband connection um I don't necessarily think I need to switch to a wireless one right well and that's true the there's a couple of issues with that right one is that the the uh the wired carriers the wired service providers keep raising their prices uh and so uh you know companies I mean T-Mobile's been very aggressive right trying to get everyone to sign up for Pixel access at $50 a month when everyone else is charging you know the $ 80 $90 a month for for for their uh connections now certainly something like FiOS is is far superior um from a speed perspective and from a reliability perspective but still if if T-Mobile's got or any of the carriers have excess 5G capacity and they can serve it to you on a fixed wireless access node at at a at a a good price then why not uh also it's also uh very attractive for remote areas so there are a lot of areas in this country that aren't wired uh for you know for fiber or or or even high-speed coax right right and so fixed wiress access makes it very attractive in rural areas where you know the the houses are a mile apart yeah I do I do feel spoiled by the fact that I have FiOS at my house um our neighborhood was very fortunate I mean it's a Suburban is area uh but you know I I do tend to forget that there are lots of homes that are still uh connected through older Technologies right exactly exactly right and and yeah so I'm spoiled as well I have the same so uh but but I also do a lot of traveling you know we go up to Maine often and and there are places in Maine where you know cell towers are 20 miles apart I'm exaggerating but you know far apart and and you're you're not going to get uh a cable run either because homes are very very sparse up there so uh fixed roess access is actually a great example of making uh getting people connected that that probably couldn't otherwise right now U speaking of towers do do uh the carriers have to in will they have to install new towers to uh provide for the cells or can they can they install 6G over existing Towers um I I'm just assuming that the cells the cell size is going to be smaller with 6G than 5G because again as you keep going up in your frequency your range is going to go different right or am I am I messing that up well there there so there's a couple of issues there number one is that even with 6G 5G won't get turned off 5G will be around for a long long time just as 4G is and so can you reuse some of the cell towers yes uh will you have to change out some of the equipment probably uh you'll have to put up new antennas and the like um but in in some cases you'll probably have to put up a a new tower uh just to uh keep from interfering with the old ones um Towers is is a is a whole different issue because most of the carriers now are are actually getting rid of their towers they're they're they're selling them off and re and renting them from companies that are Tower Management Companies okay and and so uh that's an interesting discussion in and of itself but but basically it's it's the carrier saying we don't want to have to deal with permitting we don't want to have to deal with maintenance we don't want to have to deal with any of the stuff that that Towers make us do here's a company that's willing to do it you know it's like a I guess it's like a food management company and if you don't want to you know you got a cafeteria in your company but you don't want to start your own kitchen you go out and get a food management company right same going on with Towers so with 6G uh frequency perspective of course you're going to have to have new equipment uh if we have higher frequencies you'll have to have new antennas put up um it's not clear that we'll be able to uh re reuse the towers probably we will uh but the equipment that's there now will be around for a long long time yeah yeah okay and um so as we go from 5G to 6G over the next seven or so years uh again not knowing exactly what the standard might be what frequency they're going to use etc etc what are some of the challenges that that you think carriers are going to face and um or what else you know is it going to have to be government oversight with a lot of stuff what are the challenges as we get to 6G so there's a lot of challenges uh number one is you know just defining what it's going to be uh because there are so many ways so many directions can go the Second Challenge is you know 5G already has an awful lot of capabilities not not all of them are implemented yet yeah but uh there are a lot of things in the standard that are are very uh impressive from a industrial and a consumer perspective uh a lot of uh the carriers still haven't implemented them all and so a lot of the effort's going to be in getting 5G up and running fully before you get to 6G right and that's still probably going to take a couple of years so uh that's that's a challenge the the the other challenge I think from a carrier perspective with 6G is going to be do do I optimize it for me or do I optimize it for you and what I mean by that is uh 6G could be optimized for carriers in the sense that it could be made uh more energy efficient that it could reduce the operations operating cost of of the carrier that it could use AI to really lower um the overall burden the carriers have in managing their networks which is pretty significant right um or do I concentrate 6G on giving consumers arvr stuff which is going to be a big deal maybe right we'll see that's a whole other discussion um and uh and and and car stuff or or you know satellite Communications or whatever it's going to be so it's really going to take it's going to take another probably a couple of years before all the th all of this gets sorted out and it's not clear yet where the pendulum will swing whether it will be more towards carrier benefit or consumer benefit or somewhere in the middle yeah and I think if you talk to most consumers they'd be like well I don't care what the carrier is going to get just tell me when I'm going to be able to play you know on my virtual headset out at the at the mall um yeah but but they do care that the prices are going up right right yes if if if you could if you could tell me that my price will go down right then then I would be interested right yeah well it probably won't go down but it may stay the same right if their costs go down you know Market their profits go up yeah yeah nothing ever comes down right uh what what what were some of the the big themes from this 6G Symposium that that like what were what were people excit were was there a lot of excitement or was it just more of the same as like okay let's get ready for this next technology what was the feeling at the show yeah I I think a lot of it was exploratory where are we going to go with this stuff what are some the key Minds out there that are thinking about this stuff and what are they thinking about so what are what were the key things that were going on AI of course ai ai ai and AI were were big theme right um as it always is and and not just in in 6G but these days AI is is a big theme for everything uh the other thing uh and and I did a panel with some interesting folks from the government we we talked about what the uh chips and science act will do for 6G and one of the things that people don't often talk about uh um you know we we talk about the chips act as as throwing a whole lot of money at trying to get chip manufacturing back to the US but one of the things that was in there is a significant amount of money to uh invest in networks including 6G not exclusively 6G but including 6G and so there's a lot of effort to on on the part of the government to try to Spur uh invention uh innovation in 6G before you know the other guys do yeah across the pond or or or in in the Far East um and so there was a lot of talk about what that means a lot of talk about what the uh semiconductor companies can help do um certainly from there's certainly software that's going to be inv involved because all networks in the future including 5G are really software defined networks they're not just about Hardware so there's a lot of uh interest in and how we get to the next phase of semiconductors how we get to the next phase of of chips how we get to the next phase of software uh enablement uh and and then of course how we utilize Ai and management technology to manage all this really complex stuff yeah yeah when you look at all the applications that are being um promised for 6G when compared to 5G it feels like whenever there's a next generation of of things to talk about they have to come up with with applications that are appealing to a consumer and I think the problem they've got now with arvr is that not a lot of people are interested in it I guess maybe they at some point if they see the benefit of it then they'll go okay I guess we need this network to do this do do you think that they're going to be writing on on those types of applications or is there something that maybe we haven't thought about maybe uh a generative AI type of portable device but technically you've already got that with your phone like how much of this is hype when you when you compare the um the applications that are being pitched you know based on your knowledge of 5G 4G 3G Etc and that's a great question and so the question always is if you build it will they come right right um and and and we found that it they always have right as we bring out new technologies people find a way to use it yeah um arvr is one that we kind of know about right now we'll have to see how that all shakes out there's a lot of issues uh around making that realistic uh for consumers at least yeah um industrial less so there's a lot of use uh use cases in industrial that are that are coming online now that we will be over the next couple of years as the price comes down big part of it right now is price yeah um so so those are the kinds of things that are happening but uh I I I expect things in healthcare to show up that we don't know about right now uh you know I I expect things in autonomous all kinds of autonomous vehicles y not just cars that we talk about but you know tractors and far and farm fields and uh you know robots running around you know delivering your food whatever it's going to be um there's going to be a lot of that capability necessary uh to be rolled out over the next few years and 6G could potentially help with that so I I think there's a lot of stuff we don't know about yet I think a lot of it will will come to Bear one once we have those kinds of networks in place and people can experiment yeah yeah one of the things I was looking at when I was uh doing some of the research on This was um an article that said that 6G will be able to have wi wider geographical coverage than 5G and that 6G will basically quote unquote cover the whole planet is that because they can then they're looking at space-based or satellite based uh Transmissions that that maybe we're not seeing with 5G yeah I mean we're seeing it now you know with the Leo Satellites with with all of the the technology you know um musk is putting PL stuff in place with starlink AWS is doing something Microsoft is looking at doing stuff Google's looking at stuff it's all you know Leo types of satellites right um there's no reason why they can't be part of the 6G network uh and and they probably will be at some point because again if we talk about Spectrum sharing and network intelligence you you when I use the network the network will route me over the best means possible for my connection right uh whether it's cost because of cost whether it's because of of latency whether it's because of because of speed uh all of that's going to be managed probably by Ai and it will just put me on where I need to be whenever I need to be it now will it cover the entire planet we'll see uh you know we've heard those kinds of comments before but it will cover certainly cover a wide swath if not all of the yeah yeah yeah yeah uh what's what's the next step then for the people that are following the industry is there is there another is there a deadline that people are set or is there a meeting at some point where they all the industry groups are going to get together and discuss it um I think you mentioned we two to three years out like what's the what's what what's on your radar yeah so so there there's still a number of meetings that are going on around 6G uh on on a semi-regular basis I don't know the entire schedule anymore but uh there are are excuse me there are international working groups on 6G uh we will probably see at least a preliminary spec uh in the next I would guess 18 to 24 months okay uh as they work out some of these issues uh that again that's preliminary that's not something that you're going to go out and build uh Network equipment yet for but they'll be able to do some experimentation with it I think you'll probably see a real spec emerge in probably the next four years or so give or take uh and that will give people the ability to go out and say Okay so let's do some let's build some equipment let's put some uh networks in place and and and see how well they work so it's a it's a longer time frame um there are you know that they're trying to make sure that the international standards the other problem by the way is that there's disagreement around 6G you know talked about 6G available around the world what is 6G in China versus in in Europe versus in the US versus in Australia versus in New Zealand versus in Russia or whatever is there going to be really a a 6G standard around the world like we do with Wi-Fi uh you know we're having the same discussions we had the same discussions with 5G uh and so there's a lot of spectrum issues around that uh it gets very very complicated the government's get involved and so the you know the IU and and other um standards body 3gpp are all trying to figure out how to make this standard worldwide if they possibly can yeah that brings me back to the early days of of 3G and and what was it uh I can't remember the acronym CDMA was one of them and you had you had like four or five different competing standards and finally they they they figured out how to emerge that so I thought we were beyond that but but is it's always about Spectrum right right well it's about spectrum and it's about companies trying to do their own thing or countries sorry trying to do their own thing you know China has issue with we want to lead in specs you know standards yeah uh the US does Europe does I mean we even going back to Wi-Fi I remember the early days of Wi-Fi if you if you left the us there are countries where you couldn't use Wi-Fi because they didn't have the Spectrum right or they didn't allow it you didn't have a license to use it if you use it you know you got in trouble the FCC the equivalent the FCC came and found you yeah yeah uh so there's going to be more of that um that's going to get sorted out I think eventually uh but it'll probably take a while a I think that's more political than you know technical issues and political issues are always the hard ones to solve oh boy um is there always a sense of of that companies or countries want to be first or want to be seen as the leaders in this and and why is that absolutely yeah absolutely it's it's an arms race right it's a technological arms race I don't mean to you know say you know who's got the most nukes right yeah why is that well because it's bragging rights number one number two it's because if I'm first I can have companies build the equipment that that I can sell into the marketplace right okay China was a a leader in 5G deployments specifically because they wanted companies like Huawei and ZTE and others to to be major suppliers to the world for equipment and and they were for a long time uh you know there's political issues involved so we won't get into those but but that's why you do it and and and frankly there are no leadership positions for 5G uh companies suppliers in the US you know ericon and noia are are European yeah right who who in the US I mean Cisco's doing some but there are really aren't any uh us companies so if if the US can lead in the space and they can get I'm I'm making this up right Cisco starting a 5G Branch uh and they can get ahead of the rest of the world they're going to sell a lot of equipment gon make a lot of money and we're gonna have a lot of jobs so and and bragging rights right the US always wants to be first on everything and they haven't been but that they're trying to be so do you see that happening or is that gonna is it just going to be we're going to just concede to the Europeans and the the Chinese uh I don't think concede it may happen that way yeah um we've got a lot of smart people in the US working on this stuff as well you know again the chips act put a lot of money in play y uh I think it was if I remember correctly 1.5 billion or something along those lines um so we'll see a lot of companies try to uh even startups try to try take advantage of that so it it's to be seen where it goes but you know you've got companies like they're not small companies right Ericson Nokia Samsung yeah Huawei ZTE those guys are all playing in the space as well so we'll have to see how we can make it happen all right uh Jack thanks thanks for for giving us this update and overview I know that we're still a far ways out from from all of this but um it's a great uh starting point yeah it's always always good to look at the future all right thanks for joining us on the show today thank you Keith that's all the time we have for today's episode don't forget to like this video subscribe to the channel and add any comments you have below join us every week for new episodes of today and Tech I'm Keith Shaw thanks for [Music] watching
2023-11-14 07:46
