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The race for fifth generation mobile services has not stopped, but it is objective that the revolution promised by 5G networks has not yet produced the effects (and benefits) expected; Infrastructure development is still ongoing and the common goal of operators is to optimize the large-scale implementation process. However, the telecommunications industry has been playing another game in parallel for some time, one that leads to configuring the technology that will mark the data transmission systems, mobile applications and connectivity services of the next digital society: the 6G.
The specifications of the sixth generation networks are currently a work in progress for 3GPP, the body that manages the standards for mobile networks (from the old GSM up to 5G-Advanced, whose certification is not yet finished) and the process which will have to lead to the definition of the new standard should start within the next 12 months, with the idea of reaching the goal of the first official release (on which equipment manufacturers will be able to start working) by mid-2028. To see it in operation the new networks and new commercial services will instead have to wait another 18-24 months, and therefore the beginning of 2030, provided that the roadmap is respected.
Timings aside, the technological leap forward of 6G will in any case be marked by very high data transfer capacities: in fact, there is talk of speeds that could reach the theoretical peak of one Terabit and which will exploit frequency bands in the terahertz spectrum (between 0 ,3 and 3 THz) to enable frontier applications in the field of virtual, augmented and mixed reality or holographic communication. In short, in the 6G era, we will have to get used (in the consumer world) to the more massive presence of viewers and intelligent devices capable of capitalizing on the greater capacity of wireless networks but also to the systemic use (in the industrial sector) of dynamic digital twins to design and development activities.
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The mistakes made with 5G
The risk is to avoid at all costs – and this is the message received from the latest edition of the Mobile World Congress – the mistakes made for the launch of 5G, which paid not so much for the (expected and surmountable) technical difficulties encountered as much as the absence of a real “killer app” for user businesses, whose only superficial perception of the advantages linked to the adoption of the new network has slowed down the investments necessary to access the services offered by the operators. The promise of low latency and greater transmission bandwidth, in other words, was not enough and futuristic scenarios such as the 5.0 factory, interconnected smart cities or fully self-driving cars, in which 5G should have played an enabling factor, are In fact, (with rare exceptions) some beautiful projects remained on paper.
Digital world and real world
We therefore need a technological upgrade in the name of sustainability (of costs) and actual perceived usefulness: this is one of the first challenges that 6G must overcome to establish itself as the arrival point of the development path undertaken with the standard already available today . The scenario that accompanies the arrival of sixth generation networks tells us of ubiquitous and seamless connectivity, which will lead to instant communication on all devices connected to the Internet: not only computers, smartphones, wearable gadgets and robots, but also cars , planes, drones, satellites. The turning point that 6G will impose, in a nutshell, will focus on the ability to bring the real world further closer to the digital one, trying to create value (especially in a business key) where previous generation technologies have only partially succeeded, without prejudice to priority objectives of reliability, security, privacy and resilience.