What's next after 5G?

With 5G still being rolled out, it may feel a little premature to be thinking about what comes next. It’s actually quite interested though and so we’ve put our geek hats on (OK…maybe they never really come off) to look at what’s on the horizon and spoiler…6G isn’t actually that far away!

5G-Advanced

Let’s start with 5G-Advanced. 5G-Advanced will effectively bridge the gap between 5G and 6G and it’s already available in some parts of the world. Notably operators are using 5G-Advanced in locations such as stadiums, tourism sites, transport hubs and event venues.

5G-Advanced will enhance smart connectivity and connectivity that relies on ‘uplink communication’ i.e. people moving at high speed such as on trains and on planes.

It will also have a heavier focus on AI and energy efficiency so expect to see 5G Advanced accelerating technologies and experiences such as wearables, connected vehicles, drones, highly immersive experiences and more.

For enterprise: asset tracking; industrial automation; logistics; automotive; and public safety are set to be the key applications that will benefit most from 5G-Advanced.

6G

6G is epected to launch globally around 2030…we told you it’s not that far away! And whilst 6G will indeed be faster – that’s the whole point of an upgrade right – the real story will be all about ‘integration’.

Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) is a term you should start familiarising yourself with as it’s essentially what 6G is all about. It’s the shift from a mobile network simply moving data, to a network that also senses and observes the physical environment whilst simultaneously making intelligent and real time decisions about both. Here’s a quick overview of what that might look like:

Faster – potentially 100 times faster than 5G
Equal upload and download speeds – 6G will make sending files to the cloud just as fast as downloading them.
Radar – existing infrastructure, such as masts, will be able to function like a giant radar system identifying where people and objects are, how fast they’re moving and more.
AI – 6G networks will be able to process data locally (instead of waiting to connect to data centres) making devices faster and enabling real time AI decision making.