Early R&D on 6G crucial for India to take pole position in world: Experts

New Delhi, Sep 21

As India prepares for the 5G roll out next month, industry experts on Wednesday said the research and development on 6G is crucial for India at this stage to gain a global leadership position.

6G is all about convergence of the physical and the virtual, the connected world with the hyper-connected world, the universe with the metaverse, the real with the surreal, and likewise.

"Across the globe, whether it be Finland, Japan, South Korea, China, USA as well as India, the idea of 6G has initiated a paradigm shift in terms of facilitating various research activities to bring this new generation of digital technology into reality by 2030," said T.V. Ramachandran, President, Broadband India Forum (BIF).

"This 6G compendium is intended to provide useful inputs for determining the future engagements and advances that we need to make towards gaining global competencies and leadership in 6G," he said during the dialogue on '6G: Future Vision and Perspectives'.

Various stakeholders, including K. Rajaraman, Chairperson, Digital Communications Commission (DCC) and Secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT), and leading experts debated on how 6G networks are expected to function as the fabric of the converged physical and digital worlds, providing intelligence, limitless connectivity and complete synchronisation.

"Digital Twins of networks, assets, processes, systems will come together at scale and Holographic telepresence will become the norm for work and social interaction," the experts stressed.

Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the government is preparing to begin 6G services in the country by the end of this decade.

"Young people can work on new solutions to promote the use of drone technology in agriculture and health sector. We are also preparing to launch 6G by the end of this decade. We are encouraging Indian solutions in gaming and entertainment. The way the Indian government is investing in technology, every youth should take its advantage," he said.

6G is predicted to be a disaggregated, virtualised, and scalable network consisting of smaller network functions with granular functionality, which will enable application-specific protocol processing.

The millimetre wave frequency bands in the 24 GHz to 52 GHz range, pioneered by 5G and likely to soon be extended up to 100 GHz, will naturally be used by 6G.

The 7-24 GHz range can be exploited for 6G by deploying advanced sharing mechanisms, according to the BIF.

"There is a heightened focus on energy consumption and energy-saving techniques anticipated to be in the 6G system. 6G systems will also likely demand independent, vendor-agnostic testing and validation,a said the experts.