Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel believes now is the time to start planning for 6G and outlines several steps the agency plans to take to prepare for the new wireless standard. did.
While there is no general agreement on what innovations 6G will include, it is clear that the technology’s goals are ambitious. Wireless professionals expect broadcast virtual or augmented reality, high-quality telemedicine, and more.
But that would require a lot of spectrum, and Rosenworcel, speaking at the National Science Foundation last week, said the FCC is working to identify frequencies suitable for the new standard.
“We have already identified the 7-16 GHz band as the key mid-band airwaves in the 6G era,” she said. “Therefore, we have begun a study to make 550MHz of spectrum in the 12.7-13.25GHz band available for new commercial mobile uses.”
According to FCC records, radio waves between 7GHz and 16GHz are currently used for a wide variety of purposes, including fixed wireless links, aviation communications, location-based signals, and even radio astronomy. However, the most common uses of these bands include several satellite-related services.
Therefore, Rosenworcel’s announcement that the FCC has already begun rulemaking aimed at exploring the possibility of a unified satellite and terrestrial standards framework is not surprising.
“[W]”We believe that the next generation of communications will be a combination of traditional terrestrial and satellite signals,” she said.
6G spectrum requirements
According to Susan Welsh de Grimaldo, senior director analyst at Gartner, 6G spectrum needs could be orders of magnitude higher than 5G spectrum needs. According to Ericsson’s recent white paper, even a subset of the envisioned 6G capabilities could require wide spectrum up to 3GHz, he said.
“With the first commercial 6G deployments expected in 2030, there is an urgent need for the U.S. to identify and plan for significant new spectrum allocation for both wide-area and local 6G. “It’s needed,” she said. “Early alignment of the spectrum is critical to foster development and innovation and prepare for commercial launch.”
Welsh de Grimaldo said there are encouraging aspects to the FCC’s public approach to 6G. First, his early 5G efforts focused too much on the mmWave spectrum. The mmWave spectrum is particularly high in frequency, offering wide channels and good potential throughput, but its limited propagation range makes it difficult to provide wide coverage. Limited use in 5G deployments.
“For 6G, the FCC and NTIA appear to be working on lessons learned from the 5G spectrum challenges: early identification of mid-band spectrum that provides sufficient capacity and coverage and, hopefully, 6G spectrum in other countries. We aim to work more closely with bands’ countries,” Wales de Grimaldo said.
In his remarks, Rosenworcel also called on Congress to restore the FCC’s spectrum auction authority, which expired on March 9. Restoring that power would pave the way for more auctions, which have proven to be highly rewarding and efficient for the government, she said. When allocating frequencies for commercial use.
“We can’t afford to wait,” Rosenworcel said.
