The 6G era will only officially kick off towards the end of this decade, when the first commercial deployments are expected. But it’s safe to say that the road there has already begun.

A key step for any new cellular generation is the creation of all relevant technical specifications. Three recent developments indicate that this groundwork is already being laid. 

First, 3GPP, the global partnership project for cellular connectivity standardization, has laid out its 6G timeline and committed to developing the needed specifications. Second, the World Radiocommunication Conference 2023 has decided to allocate several spectrum bands for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT), particularly in the upper 6GHz band, and decided to start studies on IMT allocation in several other bands in the 7-15 GHz range, which is regarded as the key new range for 6G use. Finally, the International Telecommunication Union has published its framework for the initial requirements for IMT-2030, the ITU nomenclature for 6G. 

Together, these moves mark a de facto start to 6G standardization with a path enabling mass 6G commercialization in the 2030 timeframe. 

Why does it matter?

In a nutshell, standardization translates the promise of 6G into an actual tangible system. It turns years of research conducted in all major regions into potential reality. No more fancy slides about use cases or drummed-up industry hype, but rather features and capabilities that are likely to appear in live networks and devices.

In essence, standardization represents a moment of truth. Concepts and technologies carefully crafted by diligent researchers and documented by research alliances are put to the test of global industry scrutiny that is 3GPP standardization.

Ultimately, these standards will determine how networks will be built and deployed and how the current and future industry stakeholders build value around these new 6G capabilities. It is hard to precisely foresee the eventual customer value proposition of 6G at this early stage. But it’s clear that 6G represents an inevitable growth fueling the ever-larger share and importance that cellular connectivity represents in the global economy.  

The 6G future

So, what are these new standardized 6G capabilities that will unlock all this new value potential expected by the industry and the global economy at large?

First and foremost, 6G standards will bring and mandate a new much-elevated baseline performance for both the networks and the devices. Recent 5G-Advanced releases in 3GPP have developed many different capabilities on energy efficiency, on uplink performance, on coverage enhancements and more. But these features are not appearing in the field yet, and even if they do, they will make very little actual difference given the massive 5G legacy device population. 6G day-one deployments will mandate many of these features in both the devices and networks, and much more.