AT&T’s CTO Andrew Fuetsch is chair fo the Next G Alliance
North American mobile industry standards group ATIS has announced election results for the Next G Alliance and its Steering Group as well as the launch of work on a 6G roadmap.
In a statement, ATIS said that Andre Fuetsch, EVP & CTO at AT&T, has been named chair of the Next G Alliance executive governing body, the Full Member Group (FMG), while Jan Soderstrom, Ericsson’s Head of Technology Office Silicon Valley, has been named FMG vice chair. Both executives will serve a two-year term.
The association also said that three co-chairs have also been named for the Next G Alliance Steering Group (SG). The SG is composed of technology leaders and experts who will identify key North American R&D needs, standards strategies and market readiness policies to achieve the goals established by the Next G Alliance. The SG co-chairs are: AT&T Assistant Vice President – Standards & Industry Alliances, Brian Daly; Head of North American Standardization at Nokia, Devaki Chandramouli; and VMware Director, Edge & AI Ecosystems, Telco Cloud Business Unit, Benoit Pelletier.
As an initial priority, a 6G Roadmap Working Group has been also launched. The National 6G Roadmap being developed will act as a foundation for future outputs, delivering a common vision and destination point for achieving North American 6G wireless leadership, ATIS said. It will define what is needed in terms of research needs, technology developments, service and application enablers, policies and government actions and market priorities, the entity added.
A key goal of the Next G Alliance is to develop a North American model that promotes development across the full lifecycle of research to realization, aligned with commercialization outcomes.
In addition to the 6G Roadmap Working Group, the Next G Alliance will simultaneously launch a “Green G” working group focused on achieving energy efficiency by reducing power consumption and assessing how to achieve a sustainable ecosystem with emerging technologies. The working group will evaluate the environmental impact of a broad range of sources including water and materials consumption as well as the use of renewable or ambient energy.
“While innovation frequently occurs in response to market needs, long-term technology leadership takes strategic foresight and critical stakeholders committed to reaching the desired future state,” said ATIS President and CEO, Susan Miller. “With its leadership set and work on both sustainability and the 6G Roadmap launched, the Next G Alliance is well positioned to create a national vision for the next decade.”
Thus far, the Next G Alliance includes 45 information and communications companies spanning infrastructure, semiconductors and device vendors; operators and other organizations, including those in the area of research.
Next G Alliance members include: Apple, AT&T, Bell Canada, Charter Communications, Ciena, Cisco, Dell, Ericsson, Facebook, Google, HPE, Intel, InterDigital, JMA Wireless, Keysight Technologies, Microsoft, Nokia, Qualcomm Technologies, Samsung, TELUS, Telnyx, T-Mobile, US Cellular and Verizon.
