Carriers' Build and Technology Cycles No Longer Align: AT&T
In the past, carrier investment and wireless technology cycles largely aligned, as carriers rolled out the next generation of wireless, said Brian Daly, assistant vice president of wireless technology strategy and standards at AT&T. As 6G is deployed, the cycles no longer match up, he said Thursday during a Light Reading advanced wireless networks webinar. “We’re moving more toward a continuous innovation, continuous disruption cycle.”
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“We recognize that 6G is coming, that the train has left the station,” Daly said. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project is finalizing 6G specifications, and the ITU “has developed their vision and definition” for international mobile telecommunications through IMT-2030 (see 2409200014). “They’re in the process of developing their requirements and evaluation requirements.”
Ten-year cycles “made sense … especially in the early G's,” Daly said. “There was close alignment -- every 10 years, we had major advances, which required radio refreshes.” AT&T is looking to modernize its network in the long term, and investments made now for 5G need to last into the 6G cycle, he said. The company doesn’t want to have to undertake a complete overhaul of its hardware to “realize the benefits” of 6G.
An open radio access network and software-based deployments are game-changers for the industry, Daly said. “We’re seeing cloud deployments in the core network. We’re moving toward cloud RAN, more virtualization” and “software-driven deployments” with current radios and legacy bands. 6G will use current bands and new bands that come online from the government, Daly said. AT&T also sees the need for a new testing and certification “paradigm” to “allow us to enable features as needed and when needed.” 6G specifications offer a lot of options, he said, and some will take time to test before they’re ready to be deployed.
AT&T sees 6G as an opportunity to lower its operating costs as well, Daly said. It will also address challenges “that 5G doesn’t address well,” including native AI and integrated sensing and communications. “5G monetization obviously is one of the big issues and challenges,” he said. When 6G arrives, “we’re going to have the same questions -- how do we monetize the technologies” being made available?
Heavy Reading analyst Gabriel Brown said all new spectrum brands coming online are expected to be ready for 6G stand-alone deployment on “Day 1.” Operators are “interested in simplified, practical 6G that’s focused on user value.” He said 5G peak speeds are already “amazing” in many cases, but there will be opportunities to improve “the overall user experience.”
Carriers are also stressing the importance of a “needs-based” hardware refresh, Brown said. “We’re going to have new spectrum,” and “we’re going to need new hardware on the infrastructure side and on the device side,” but “it doesn’t have to be all at once.” In addition, carriers are saying they want to see “clear benefits from 6G” relative to 5G advanced. “That’s a high bar to clear,” he said.
Brown also noted that carriers want to see better sensing and improved network computing, which is important to AI, as 6G is deployed. They want “service-aware capabilities” for extended reality applications and “AI-enabled services of all kinds,” he said. “There’s really a lot going on,” and “now is really the time to be paying attention.” Carriers hope the systems they deploy now can evolve to meet the demands of the kind of services that will be seen 10 years down the road, he added.
“6G will really be the underlying fabric that’s going to connect an expanded set of AI-powered devices to enable new services,” said Hemanth Sampath, vice president of engineering at Qualcomm Technologies. User behaviors are already shifting away from consuming app-based content only on smartphones, he said, adding that while the smartphone will remain the key device that consumers use, many others will also be able to connect to cellular networks.
Technology is moving into a world where smartphones are connected to watches, smart glasses and other devices, and they use AI, Sampath noted. AI agents will be “continuously observing, sensing and inferring,” he said. “You’re going from very downlink-initiated, app-based traffic to a much more natural interaction driven by AI.” That will mean increasing data use, especially uplink traffic on networks, he said.
The move to AI means people will need to stay connected to the network, with continuous access to the network edge and the central cloud, Sampath said.