6G and AI Advancing Rapidly, but Challenges Remain, TAC Told
The FCC Technology Advisory Council approved reports from its three working groups on Tuesday at the body's final meeting under its former charter. The reports weren't immediately available. It was the first TAC meeting since December (see 2412190065), when former Chairman Dean Brenner announced he was leaving. A replacement hasn't been named since his departure in January. TAC will continue under a new charter.
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Brian Daly, co-chair of the 6G working group, said these are very early days for the next generation of wireless and standards taking shape. 5G isn’t “going away anytime soon,” and coexistence with 6G is critical, he added. “There’s going to be a need for continued work in many areas." Most wireless carriers “are still in the midst of their 5G deployments” and “haven’t considered the implications of 6G,” said Daly, an assistant vice president at AT&T. He also noted that much remains unknown about use cases for 6G.
The industry so far has done limited work on millimeter-wave spectrum, Daly said. “There’s little limited technical detail on localization, beam steering and meta surfaces.” The privacy and security risks from some technologies that 6G will enable -- including AI, machine learning and quantum communications -- remain “underexplored,” he said, adding that integrating satellite coverage into terrestrial networks will also require further study.
Spectrum remains a big issue for 5G, Daly said. There's "midband spectrum scarcity, which does threaten innovation.” The success of 5G and 6G will depend on “smart policy,” infrastructure investment and collaboration among stakeholders. For wireless carriers, “spending growth has far outpaced revenue growth since 4G.”
TAC members also approved a paper from the working group on AI and machine learning. “There’s rapid technical progress on AI/ML,” said group co-Chair Lisa Guess, senior vice president of global sales engineering at Ericsson North America. “There are new paradigms, there’s maturation,” she said, noting that large language models are developing rapidly. In TAC work five years ago, AI “was not nearly as mature, and it is definitely evolving."
AI and ML depend on high-quality data, Guess said. “This is going to require new data governance, policy regimes, best practices,” she added. “The world is changing, and it’s changing rapidly.”
There’s “a lot of hype around AI,” and there’s “a price to be paid for that,” said Adam Drobot, the group's other co-chair and a board member at Stealth Software Technologies. AI isn’t perfect but has “advanced in an incredible way in a very short period of time."
Serving on an FCC advisory committee is like a pie-eating contest, said FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who opened the meeting. The prize is “you get more pie at the end of it.” TAC is important to the commission’s ability to make “sound, forward-thinking decisions in what is increasingly a radically changing technological landscape,” Carr said. It's the agency's “early warning system when it comes to big technology changes, and it’s also our innovation compass.”
TAC members understand the science behind emerging technologies, “which is a lot more than I can say for many, many other people,” Carr said. “You really understand this stuff, and you ask the hard questions.” The FCC needs TAC advice as 6G is launched, he said. “6G is not simply a faster version of what came before. It’s going to enable entirely new paradigms.”
Ira Keltz, acting FCC chief engineer, said TAC can help with some of the big issues the agency is pursuing. “We’ve got our auction authority back,” he said. “We’ve been directed to repurpose a whole lot of spectrum for advanced telecom needs.” The FCC is looking at satellites, AI and drones, he said, which are all current areas of focus for TAC.
With TAC being rechartered, the commission is looking for new members, with the next meeting expected in 2026, officials said Tuesday. Membership applications are due Oct. 3.