The new report explores how as-yet-unstandardized 6G technology can help meet the applications needs of a broad range of industries
ATIS’ Next G Alliance (NGA) announced the publication of a new report dubbed ‘6G Roadmap for Vertical Industries’, which focuses on the demand side of future 6G systems.
The new report builds on the NGA’s 2022 roadmap to 6G report, which established the North American vision for next generation communications systems.
The new report explores how as-yet-unstandardized 6G technology can help meet the applications needs of a broad range of industries including agriculture, automotive, education, gaming and entertainment, eHealth, industrial, mining, public safety and smart cities.
NGA noted that the report traces the implications of vertical-specific use cases into applications that future 6G technology can enable and highlights promising technologies that need to be researched and engineered into operational systems. The NGA based its research on direct input from experts in the vertical industries represented to identify their 6G visions and needs.
“Within the communications industry, expectations are high for new value-creation opportunities in the vertical domains with both 5G and 6G,” said Next G Alliance Managing Director Mike Nawrocki. “Acting on its research from this new report, the NGA has set three goals to meet these expectations: to translate North American needs to technology outcomes, to target shared investments in 6G proof-of-concepts and testbeds and to connect North American 6G needs directly to the marketplace,” the executive added.
“A majority of current 5G commercial wide area deployments have been centered around eMBB (enhanced Mobile Broadband) services and future deployments will be targeting vertical use cases as outlined in this report,” said Amitava Ghosh, chair of the NGA National 6G Roadmap Working Group (NRWG).“This first-of-a-kind paper focuses on vertical industry needs for both 5G and 6G with the aim of helping the ICT industry reach out to the broadest range of stakeholders for future application opportunities.”
Last month, NGA published a report on artificial intelligence wireless networks which addresses one of the “six audacious goals” set forth in the NGA’s roadmap to 6G.
“Native support of artificial intelligence (AI) is projected to be one of the major features of the next generation wireless network. AI-native networks are one of NGA’s research priorities that will require strong collaboration among industry, government and academia. This work is meant to identify driving forces, technical challenges and research directions,” NGA said.
The initial application of AI/ML to wireless networks began with 5G, stated NGA. However, its application in 6G will be more real-time, increasingly comprehensive and seamlessly integrated into the design of the wireless system. The white paper outlines the research and technology directions required to make the vision of an AI-native wireless network a reality.
