Ok. Hello and welcome to the Visions of 6G panel
session at this year's Critical Communications world.
Thank you for joining us.
Um, my name is Philip Mason, um, I'm the editor of Critical Communications Today magazine and
Mobile magazine and the Bay Journal, and I'll be chairing this session.
We have 3 expert speakers this afternoon, all of whom are going to give us a valuable insight
into this subject and what to expect as the technology develops going into the future.
Harry Sannisari, um, who's the university researcher at the University of Oulu,
um, Paolo Baraka, who is a research engineer at Nokia, and Mika Stark,
who's a senior project manager at Quor.
In terms of structure, we'll kick off the session with each of our speakers in a 10
minute presentation after which I'll open up the discussion and some questions.
After that, we'll be taking questions from the audience.
Uh, so yeah, please don't be shy and um yeah.
But in the meantime, uh, Harry, I think we're gonna speak first.
Yeah, OK. Is this open, yes.
OK, now it's there.
OK, we are talking about 6G and we do not yet know what it is,
what it will be, and we can only imagine, but that means that we have all the freedom at this
moment, few years after a few years, it's more precise what will be.
So the fact is that mobile generations will come after about 10 years,
so it means that if you count because 5G games in about 2023,
6G will be used in 2030, so do not expect it to be here before
that. But in every generation we have different
phases in development. So first we have this use case definitions,
requirements, definitions, visions, what it should be,
and that is where we are with 6G right now.
And after that phase when we have some Ideas of what it will be and what could be
the potential solutions, then we go to standardisation phase and it is expected that
6G will follow the same procedures.
And this is sketch from different 6G timetables found from the internet.
I think Nokia has been involved in this. 3GPP is there,
ITU is there.
So you get the arrow points where we are right now and you can see that in some VCs it's not
yet even started this 6G development.
It will start in the next year or the year after, but anyway,
the general trend is that we are still in this visioning phase,
developing of use cases and then finding for solutions, research for
solutions for those use cases.
And then about 2027 comes the standardisation where they pick up some use
cases and some solutions and start to develop the standard.
What is happening in the 6G research at this point, there are already rising number of
projects ongoing.
and communities ongoing in this topic, but I mentioned here 22
projects which I have followed and know better.
So one is HXAX, which is Horizon Europe project that has all the
key players in the field involved there, and the aim is to develop these
60 visions and start doing this in research.
And I think the first phase is about to end now and they have applied for the 2nd phase of
HXAX. So most probably there will be a continuum of
this project, and they have quite good web pages where you can find the research results,
all the deliverables of the project where you can check,
check for more information of this.
Then in different companies have provided white papers.
I don't have web addresses of those, but probably you can find them if you do Google
search on the internet.
And where I come from is this 6G flagship. It's a finished project,
8 years project to develop 6G in Finland and around the globe.
So we are targeting highly international cooperation in that
and. You can find the early results of that from our
web pages. So we started in 2019.
We organised the 1st 60 summit in Levi, then we were online because of the COVID for two
years, and now it is with the EU CNC, the flagship European
ICT conference.
It's they are organised together the 6G summit and EUCNC.
So as I said, we are in the use case phase, and here are a few snapshots of use
cases shown so far.
The this is left hand, left hand.
Now it's your left hand side. It's the hexX use cases and in the right one,
we have 6G flagship use cases. You can see that all the terminology is
different, the topics are quite about the same.
And you can see that their sustainability is involved and since the beginning,
it was decided that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals should be one
target drivers for 60.
And it's not only carbon neutrality but also the societal things like how to use
6G to prevent poverty, how to improve e-education and things like that in
poor countries.
But let's see how how it happens in the future.
Uh, but these are high-level titles and probably you could think that these
include everything, but that is not the case. If you dig tend to hexAX.
Documents or 60 flagship white papers, you can see that they are not covering really
everything. And here is snapshot of what is in HXAX,
what they really mean, what they have talked in HEXA X about this use cases like this
sustainable development is not covering all the missing 3 billion people that are without
connectivity, but they are talking about having.
Constitutional coverage, so it means that they want to provide coverage into schools or
hospitals in remote areas.
Not, not doing miracles but part of that.
Then they are talking about higher data rates like massive training telepresence which is
holographic communication, which means huge amount of data that that is one of,
one of those targets.
Robots to cos that might be interesting in this mission critical things and,
and so local trusts also security things in healthcare.
60 and critical communications.
This is my, my conclusions about this. So we don't have 60 use cases,
critical communication use cases in 60s yet.
So it's now time for this community to act and provide these use cases in the field.
But of course you have to propose these use cases to somebody.
And then have a project where you can solve the technical problems which comes out there and
that that way you can then propose these use cases and solutions to the standardisation
bodies. Anyway, they're like in 5G or 4G there are
some special.
Use cases that fit well with the critical communication like this security thinking
or or Or extreme coverage in
some cases, use of drones, use of satellites, and so on,
they fit there very well.
But in any case, if you don't have your own use case in the standard,
the solution like in 4G and 5G has happened that.
The solution is not optimal for you or critical communications, but,
but, but you have to do some tailored solutions to solve critical communication systems
and it's not any working optimally like this ad hoc networks,
they are not supported by 4G or 5G, but critical mission operations often.
are asking for them, but they are not reality in comm commercial communication
systems. OK, that's, hence my presenters.
And next one we go, next we go to the more deeper in some special topics.
Thank you. So antibody.
One second that the lights will come. I guess you are hearing me now.
OK, so, um, uh, my name is Paolo Baraka, and I am here from Nokia Bell Labs,
and, uh, I want to, um, uh, I want to show a little bit in this teaser what,
uh, 6G could be and in particular how it could be relevant also for critical communication.
So the The ultimate goal of 6G in our view is that there will be a new level of
interconnection between physical, digital, and human world.
What that means is that we expect in 10 years from now to have um digital representation of
digital twins of many physical entities, digital twin of a car,
of a machine, of a building, of a city.
And uh they should be used, they can be used to augment human capabilities in different ways.
So for example, human beings can access this information uh or they can better interact with
the physical entities through these digital twins.
There are a lot of use cases that are under definition, for example,
in XXX or in other projects and technology components uh like uh usage of uh AI and
machine learning for the air interface or joint communication and sensing.
Today, I want to um present one of this scenario and technology component,
which are the 6G subnetworks.
That um we think can be relevant for critical communication also because they represent an
evolution of uh um 5G URLLC towards 6G.
So when we talk about uh 6G subnetworks, uh, we are talking about uh small
high performance communication, and these are targeting very different type of
scenarios. One could be uh industrial IoT scenario where
the idea is to replace ERA and therefore we need to be able to support,
for example, 100 microsecond latency loop cycle that is way beyond what 5G can support.
Another one could be for a communication inside a vehicle,
inside a car to replace a canvas or automotive ethernet.
Then there could be a use case that is for health monitoring or it could be,
let's say a more consumer type of subnetwork where we have people next to each other
equipped with smartboards. We know and we expect that in 10 years from now
it will not just be a smartphone, but there will be large usage of,
for example, smart glasses, smart watches, smart armbands.
So scenarios are very different, very heterogeneous, and those are the requirements
that we expect 6G will be able to support are very different.
For example, for this industrial case, we would have to support latency in the order of
fashion of milliseconds down to 100 microseconds and reliability that goes beyond
59, so even more than what 5G can support.
For this consumer type of subnetwork, so in-house or in body,
um, the, the, the vision is to support this metaverse.
So it will be in terms of traffic, uh, what could be high throughput ULSE,
so several 100 of megabits per second or even gigabits per second with a latency that is a
bit more relaxed than what we have in 5G, so like 5 milliseconds,
10 milliseconds, but in conjunction with this high throughput requirement,
it will be a challenge to support that.
And then we may have a scenario like this in vehicle case replacing a canvas and automotivee
internet where we may have these two types of traffic to be supported at the same time.
So control loop with extreme latency and reliability requirements,
and also, for example, camera sensors for autonomous driving that are generating
high throughput ULSC type of traffic.
Uh, why do we use the term subnetwork for this type of deployment?
So the idea is that, uh, uh, we will have a sort of evolution of what in 5G has already
been introduced with the PC5 with Sidelink, uh, towards something that is a bit more evolved
where we have a group of devices that can better communicate among each other.
And uh where we will have a device that can be a sort of access point for this small
mesh network that we call subnetwork.
And what should happen is that uh when the subnetwork is,
for example, going out of coverage for different reasons,
it could be a car entering a parking lot with out of coverage or it could be something like
an earthquake happening.
This subnetwork needs to be able to operate autonomously even when out of coverage and meet
the reliability requirements that are extreme and I was showing in the previous slide.
On the other hand, it's a subnetwork because we think that they should be seen as a part of the
whole 6G system as there are benefits in having this subnetwork connected to the
overlay network of different types. One of these could be,
for example, interference management among neighbouring subnetworks.
So this is uh still very research uh phase and uh as you learned before,
standardisation has not yet started and we're not starting now.
At least 4 or 5 years from now, so it's still very, very early.
Uh, the type of spectrum that will be needed to support this kind of deployment is still open
on what would be the best one.
There are different options on the table.
So, um, I was mentioning that it's about short range high performance.
One good option would be to use millimetre wave bands that has already been introduced in 5G
because, uh, large bandwidths are available and we can exploit this large bandwidth to meet
these requirements.
Another options could be to use unlicensed bands as well.
Uh, in that case, the situation is a little bit more complicated because,
uh, uh, unlicensed bands typically rely on this before talk as a mechanism to
allow coexistence of different technologies which is not,
uh, let's say latency friendly and new regulations may be needed.
Another options, of course, under study more at the research level is to have a sort of
evolution of ultra wide band. So we are talking about short range,
which means that we will have also low power, and we can think about this subnetworks as a
low power underlay system that is able to operate on very large bands and coexist with
other systems, um, active in this 310 bigger band.
There are a lot of uh um challenges and issues related to uh this type of deployment
and um uh that need to be solved to make this a reality.
Um, I cannot go into the detail of all of them, but one for sure that is very important is the
interference. So this uh very small network may need to be
able to provide uh.
High performance, meet extreme requirements, uh, also a situation where interference can be a
lot and fluctuating, for example, a jammed road, if we have uh in vehicle subnetworks or a
crowded event, if we are talking about people in body or group of people.
And we need algorithms and solutions that are able to cope with this interference
um in different scenarios. So when we have uh coverage from the overlay
network, we can use um centralised scheme.
When we have the subnetwork out of coverage, we need to rely on distributed algorithms,
and we need the hybrid solutions also for the situation in between.
I mentioned that uh um one important aspect for this and for 6G will be extreme reliability.
This means that uh uh it's not just about uh coverage or extreme coverage.
What is important is also to uh include um Events that could be rare but still
very impactful for some of these requirements that goes to 67,
99s, it means that we cannot lose a few pockets out of 1 million,
for example, and it means that it's important also to have a good design against this type
of rare events that could be. For example,
impulsive noise from electromechanical devices, or for example,
jammers, in particular, smart jammers that could block the communication between these
devices and 6G should be designed, taking this into account and the
modelling should be included for that solution should be developed.
So that's all.
Thank you. I will be happy to answer any questions that
you might have about this or about uh other technology components in 6G.
OK. My name is Mika Karpa.
I'm from the company called Kumu Core, and maybe before jumping to this,
uh, 6G topic, a couple of words about Kumu Core. So, uh,
we are a small, um, small company spinoff actually from the Alta University in Espo,
Finland, and our, um, purpose is to support research.
Um, projects either if they are in the, in the companies or the universities and,
and, uh, we have actually done already a 11, 6G project called Terra wave.
So there we are using our core technology um for, for a
terahertz radio. So one big difference that what we can see
already now.
What's, uh, what the chickchi will do is that uh it's not,
uh, the radio interface is not based on the simulations, but it's actually based on the
real, real testing, at least, you know, some, some part of it.
So, um there is something interesting, interesting coming from,
from also from the research perspective, all this kind of uh the phase before anything is um
is published. So, um, that's about um about the kumu core and
what we do. So, um, if when we think about them,
then, um, Mobile networks, so it's not an isolated uh thing,
it's a, you know, part of the society, part of the part of the internet.
So uh what can we say where the, the, the world is going,
going. Today, so the one thing that uh I think um all
of us should be and, and, uh, the whole world is kind of a really concerned is the climate
change and there that will impact the mobile networks or internet
for, for sure. So, so I kind of I'm, I tend to believe that
the power consumption.
is the main driver of the, of the 6G that you know, how can we run more and more
um Traffic through the network using uh at least less
electricity per bit, hopefully less electricity for the whole,
whole network.
And, and that's something that uh um In my opinion, it will be the really
important important thing.
And then also when doing that, so it's not only about access technology
but thinking about uh the whole internet as a, as a kind of um entity that uh how can
we organise uh information network more efficient manner.
So if you think about where we are, where these ches are coming from,
so they are coming from the telephone network, so that's uh It used to be the,
the, uh, calling that there was a two different kinds of networks,
the telephones and then the, the IT but I think the telephone thinking is not
needed or it's gone into the past. So, so having a little bit more holistic thing.
Uh, in the, in the thinking and the security, it has been mentioned,
um, I think, uh, both this both previous, um, uh, presenters talk about the security,
definitely thing and I'm Thinking or my my why, why I'm saying that the
security is important is because machines, they can't use passwords or fingerprints or or
facial recognition.
So when we add more and more machines into the network, they have to trust the network.
They have to trust that information what is coming through the network.
So the security has to be built.
Uh, built in to the, to the network and it's not something that what we can add later,
later on. And then also the, from the business
perspective that uh if you look at um the growth, so the application providers,
they have, they have um Been very successful during the last 1010,
15 years, but the mobile operators have not or, or the,
the OEMs, they have been also fairly difficult times.
So somehow this power structure, structure has to change or will change in this
uh in this uh world.
And for the 6G I also tend to believe that we will see a new traffic
class so that uh There is a need for an enormous capacity with a
very low latency and, and uh I think that, uh, of course,
you know, the bedding what frequency will be used, um,
it's unable, but, um, but something where we have a huge um Huge amount of
capacity and very low latency that's needed.
And one of those kind of use cases is a TV cameras that TV cameras without encoding,
it requires something like 12 gigabits per second traffic,
and that's one very practical use case that could be.
could be done and what might be the, the, the one of the use cases for the,
for the 6G. Um, in general, if you look at this light pole,
so there tend to be more and more um requirements for the network,
more and more frequencies, and, uh, and so on. So somehow this whole thing has to be also
simplified that it's operable in the, in the, um.
In the real life. OK, but what do we know?
We also know something about the future, or we can be,
you know, fairly sure that what's going to happen in the future,
and that will then, you know, set the problem, problem setting for the 6G that uh uh there is
no sign that the traffic growth will even slow down.
That's uh definitely there is more and more traffic going through the network and then we
need to build the network um um.
Fulfilling that demand that is coming from the, from the um human beings and more and more from
the, from the machines as, as well.
Um, the other thing.
That is maybe not, I think that's traffic, traffic growth,
that's something like, you know, that's 100% sure that it's happening,
but uh the uh the next one web 3.0, I think there are very strong signs that
this kind of a decentralised architecture uh is gaining momentum,
that's how that will then impact the 6G and the time, you know,
the 30s. Uh, I think that's, uh, you know,
there are a lot of different opinions, but something like that,
uh, that, uh, we can.
Use the metadata to validate the data what we are seeing something like that.
I guess and uh then I would also argue that uh the uh the end of cheese,
so um now when, when we look at what happened with the,
with the 5th of 5, 5th generation that uh when that was
launched, it didn't have any impact to the um stock price,
the operator stock prices, not the OEM.
Uh, stock prices, so it was hyped a lot. It's still hyped a lot,
but somehow the market is not buying it. So somehow as an industry,
I think we have to come up with something better than the next number as a kind of a
marketing, marketing gimmick.
Not saying that the 6G is not coming, but maybe that's the last,
uh last G.
And then also that, uh, when coming back to that, there are more and more use cases,
more and more frequencies.
So it's kind of also an implication to the, to the thing that the current business model is
not. Dynamic enough.
So, um, we need something more.
And then this kind of uh takes me to the last, uh last slide.
So what that's something more, uh, I'm not going to try to solve everything on the one
slide, but one thing that uh uh I would like to give you is that,
the how this, uh, how we can organise the, the network differently on
this um. slide on the left hand side, so that's my
electricity consumption.
So the, the blue curve is the, the electricity consumption in my home during
11 day and during the nighttime, so starting from zero,
I was charging my car, then the car was charged and then I went home.
Then it was actually a Friday.
So in Finland we go sauna on Friday, so that's then the 8 o'clock peak.
There is a sauna.
And then the yellow curve, there is the price of the electricity.
So during the nighttime, the price of electricity was close to 0%.
Then when I went to work, somebody else went to factories and they,
they started to consume. The electricity price went up.
Evening came, for some reason, maybe it was windy or something.
And the price went down, but something like that uh uh model,
we can also ease.
The uh traffic growth that because there are more and more um use cases using the
capacity, so if we can um organise that demand.
Uh, more smarter way than today, and the way of organising is,
is to give an incentive to use the capacity when it's not,
uh, or when the, the, the, the price is low. So, so then,
uh, the exchange model or neutral host model, it can be done several different ways,
but, uh, but, uh, I think that's on, on the way of um Of at least thinking about it that how
could we, how could we utilise, utilise that.
Um So with this I'll I'll stop here and um Give it
power back to. Phil