Editor's Note
Communications World All Media launched a series of reports on the "Foreseeing 2022" ICT industry trend, discussing industry trends, conspiring for industrial development, and helping the development of the ICT industry in 2022. This issue invited Strategy Analytics Yang Guang to write an article predicting the development trend of 6G in 2022, so stay tuned!
5G is gradually on track
The 6G curtain has just opened
In 2021, the global 5G industry ecology continues to mature, and significant progress has been made in terminals, networks, and services. According to StrategyAnalytics data, global 5G terminal shipments increased by 130% year-on-year, accounting for more than 1/3 of global mobile phone shipments. As more operators begin to use the low and medium frequency bands to expand 5G network coverage, the 5G population coverage rate has risen rapidly, in addition to China and South Korea, the 5G population coverage rate in developed markets such as the United States, Japan, Germany, France, and Spain has also reached or approached 80%. Driven by the development of terminals and networks, the development of global 5G users is taking off, and StrategyAnalytics expects that the number of global 5G users will exceed 780 million by the end of 2021, accounting for 9.5% of the total number of global cellular communication users. It can be said that the global 5G development has embarked on a growth track and will maintain a high-speed growth trend in the next few years. StrategyAnalytics estimates that by 2026, global 5G subscribers and connectivity revenue will reach 36% of the total number of cellular mobile subscribers and 57% of connectivity revenue, becoming the world's mainstream mobile communication technology.
According to the historical development law of the ten-year generation of mobile communication technology, the start of 5G commercialization is the day when 6G research begins, especially in the context of the current science and technology competition and the game of great powers, 6G research has received extraordinary attention. With the ITU-RWP 5D Working Group beginning to work on drafting the "IMTVision for 2030 and beyond" proposal in March 2021, the standard study for 6G has officially begun.
In 2022
6G is a critical year for moving from academic research to industrial vision
Before ITU-R launched the 6G vision study, domestic and international academic circles have conducted many years of academic research on new wireless communication technologies for 6G, and gradually proposed a series of potential key technologies such as terahertz communication, star-earth integrated fusion networking, full-duplex in-band, intelligent hypersurface, endogenous intelligent air interface and network architecture. Before these academic research results are identified and adopted as key technologies for 6G, the global mobile communication industry first needs to reach a consensus on the industrial vision and technical needs of 6G, and 2022 will be a key year for forming a 6G industry vision. Figure 1 shows a rough timeline of 6G development.
Figure 1 Approximate timeline of 6G development
(Source: 5GIA, StrategyAnalytics)
In order to promote extensive and in-depth exchanges and discussions among industry partners and promote the construction of industrial consensus, major countries or regions have launched corresponding research programs.
In the mainland, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, together with the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Science and Technology, has guided the industry to set up the IMT-2030 (6G) Promotion Group, which is the main platform for aggregating the strength of industry, education and research in the mainland to promote China's 6G research and international exchanges and cooperation, and has released the "White Paper on the Overall Vision and Potential Key Technologies of 6G" in June 2021.
The European Union launched the flagship project Hexa-X of 6G research in 2021, and its project team includes heavyweight communication companies such as Nokia, Ericsson, Orange, Telefonica, TIM, as well as ICT technology giants such as Siemens and Intel, as well as a large number of European universities and research institutions. While promoting research on 6G technology within the EU, the Heta-X project will also seek openness and cooperation among the global research community, standardization bodies and policy makers by organizing public seminars, writing joint white papers and actively participating in major events.
The Japanese government has planned to establish a research fund totaling more than 50 billion yen for 6G research and industrialization, and to fund the development and deployment of 6G technology research and related test facilities. Japan has also established cooperative plans for 6G research with the United States and Finland, respectively, to develop 6G core technologies in 2026 and start commercial deployment of 6G in 2030.
The South Korean government also plans to invest 200 billion won in 6G research and industrialization between 2021 and 2026, with the goal of starting non-standard 6G prototype deployment in 2026 and commercial deployment of 6G between 2028 and 2030.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Future of Networks Act in December 2021, requiring the FCC to establish a "6GTask Force" to coordinate industry, standardization organizations, and federal, state and other levels of government to promote the development of 6G technology.
The global mobile communications industry, including leading operators and technology companies, has also launched 6G technology research and released 6G research white papers or research reports. It can be expected that 2022 will become a key year for 6G to move from academic research to industrial vision. In this process, in addition to extensive and in-depth exchanges and discussions between industry and academia, the scale development of 5G, especially the wide deployment of 5G vertical industry applications, will also help the industry to find needs and gather consensus in deployment practice.
Intergenerational evolution of mobile communications
Dynamics, inertia and challenges
When we welcome the large-scale development of 5G and start to launch 6G research, we also need to pay attention to the historical changes in the technological development path and industrial ecological pattern of mobile communications, which may have a potential impact on the development of 6G.
Since the first cellular mobile communication system was commercially available in the early 1980s, the development of communication network technology, especially air interface technology, has been the main driving force for the upgrading of mobile communication systems. The advancement of air interface technology is the key to the improvement of the capabilities of mobile communication systems, and has also become a sign of the intergenerational replacement of mobile communications. Before the standardization work was officially launched, the key technologies of air interfaces often accumulated over a long period of research and accumulation, and a basic technical consensus had been formed in the industry. For example, about a decade before the completion of the first version of the 3GUMTS standard, CDMA, the core technology of the 3G air interface, has begun field technical tests; before the formulation of the 4G standard, its core technologies of OFDM, MIMO, etc. have also undergone years of research, and the academic and industrial circles have formed a basic consensus on its core technology as a new generation of mobile communication systems.
Figure 2 The development process of 3G, 4G and 5G technologies
(Source: Orange)
Market demand is also an important factor in promoting the upgrading of mobile communication systems. Historical experience shows that if the pace of technological progress and the pace of development of market demand can be fully matched, it will significantly accelerate the promotion and popularization of a new generation of mobile communication systems. The development of 2G coincides with the popularization of mobile voice communication services, and 4G technology is proposed in the context of the rapid development of smart phones and mobile Internet applications, which has contributed to the rapid expansion and long-term healthy development of 2G and 4G systems in the global market.
The global mobile communications industry has accumulated huge development inertia in decades of development. Mobile communication technology is the crystallization of today's advanced human engineering technology, which requires joint collaboration in many fields such as information and communication theory, semiconductor technology, complex software systems, etc., and requires huge capital investment to support continuous technological research and product development. The system replacement is the best opportunity for commercial monetization of these R&D investments, industry-leading companies hope to maintain competitive advantage and drag down competitors through rapid and sustained technology iteration, while emerging start-ups are looking forward to breakthroughs in key technologies that can subvert the existing industrial landscape.
The global mobile communications industry is under the joint action of many factors such as technological progress, market demand and industry development inertia, all the way to 5G at the pace of a decade-old generation, and opened the curtain of 6G research. However, we must also see that the development of the Internet industry and the integration of ICT technology have made great changes in the market pattern and industrial ecology faced by the mobile communication industry, and the technological development of mobile communications is also facing the dilemma of stagnation of basic theoretical progress, and the development of the mobile communication industry is facing unprecedented challenges.
In the most core field of air interface technology, the spectral efficiency of 4G and 5G technology is very close to the theoretical limit determined by Shannon's information theory, although the system performance can be further improved by using higher frequency bands, larger bandwidth, more RF channels and antenna units, but it may also pay a considerable engineering cost, and there are great limitations in the application scenario. Most of the other potential key technologies are still in the academic research stage and have not yet formed enough industry consensus.
On the other hand, the vigorous development of the Internet industry has driven the growth of traffic consumption and continuously put forward new requirements for network capacity, but also greatly seized the share of consumer communication information consumption, compressed the market space of the traditional communication industry, and restricted the endogenous growth ability of the communication industry. According to StrategyAnalytics, the global mobile operator's business revenue in the consumer market will not only not grow, but may also decline by an average of 0.1% per year over the next 5 years. At present, leading operators are looking to vertical industry markets to expand their business areas to achieve sustainable growth. However, we must also see that the vertical industry market is not the so-called "blue ocean", and telecom operators not only need to compete with system integrators in traditional industries, but also encounter strong competition from Internet giants represented by public cloud vendors. At present, the Internet giants not only form a crushing trend on leading telecom operators in terms of capital market value, but also begin to surpass leading telecom operators in terms of business revenue and static profits, and maintain a higher growth rate.
If this trend does not change significantly in the next decade, it will inevitably affect the long-term investment ability of telecom operators in new technologies and their influence on the industrial chain.
Take 6G as an opportunity
Redefine the goal of intergenerational evolution of mobile communications
After five generations and more than 40 years of rapid development, the global mobile communication industry is facing a new industrial ecological environment and will also serve a broader social and economic goal.
At present, the global communications industry has generally positioned itself as the infrastructure base of the modern information society, and the service objects have changed from information communication between people to the internet of all things in thousands of industries. The demand for the evolution of mobile communication technology no longer comes only from traditional telecom operators, but also includes more diverse vertical industries and social organizations, and requires closer interaction and cooperation with modern information technology, while also being more secure, reliable and environmentally friendly. Such diverse requirements inevitably place higher demands on the customizability, flexibility and agility of mobile communication systems. On the other hand, the practice of telecom operator service vertical industry has shown that highly customized and flexible and diverse system requirements can easily drive up operators' operating costs and affect their profitability. Therefore, in the process of evolution to a new generation of mobile communication systems, the mobile communication industry not only needs to pursue technological progress and performance enhancements, but may also consider how to improve the flexibility and agility of the system, and also pay more attention to how to control operating costs and environmental impacts.
In this case, the mobile communications industry needs to reaffirm the "original intention" of user-centricity, get rid of the development inertia accumulated over the past few decades, and transform the pursuit of higher, faster and stronger air interface technologies into a more economical and reasonable way to serve a wider range of socio-economic goals. In order to achieve such a goal, the mobile communication industry needs to uphold a more open mind, break the existing industry boundaries, absorb industry users to participate in 6G technology research and standardization, and fully learn from the advanced technological achievements of various industries, especially the IT Internet industry, to promote the close integration of ICT technology. It may be the only way to fully expand the 6G industry space, meet multiple complex needs, and make 6G a solid foundation for the future interconnected society.
Author of this article
Yang Guang
Strategy Analytics
End
Written by Strategy Analytics Yang Guang
Editor-in-Charge/Layout: Fan Fan
Review: Shen Qing
Producer: Liu Qicheng
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