Perspectives

Abstract

Thanks for the quote, Mr. Colin Wilcock, chairman of the board of the 5G Industry Association, this was an outstanding supposedly 6G gathering kickoff! I was thrilled to be back to the invitation-only Brooklyn 6G Summit (B6GS), hosted each year by Nokia and NYU Wireless, the wireless research center at New York University. This 10th edition of the 2-day B6GS brought together 250 attendees from around the globe, including 50 speakers, representing vendors, academia, communications service providers (CSPs), regulators and experts from multiple industries. The Summit also showcased more than 20 live 5.5G and 6G demonstrations.

This year, the current 5G situation was the main topic of discussion. We have yet to see the promise of 5G! Humans, instead of industry as envisioned as the chief driver 10 years ago, remain the overwhelming 5G users. Put another way, we are still at the top of the ITU triangle (Figure 1) and far from the Future IMT.

The consensus is: it’s too soon to judge 5G, let’s finish the work to deliver its true promise of addressing massive machine type communications (mMTC) and ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC). At the 2018 B5GS, there was already a sentiment that perhaps 6G will be the completed form of 5G, which anyway is an LTE-based technology.

The complete text of this publication is available to subscribers - please log into your account. If you are not currently subscribed, please contact us for access to this publication.