6G, how does the communications industry tell a good and attractive story?

 We can believe that, starting from the present, the fervor of 6G will continue for many years, and will not stop until it is put into commercial use. Then, the communications industry needs to tell two stories well: first, to the industry, believing that 6G technology has a bright future; and then to the general users, believing in the great creative power of 6G technology for life, work and the economy. The slogan "4G changes life, 5G changes society" has been deeply rooted in people's hearts, so what can 6G change? 6G suddenly comes like a spring breeze. The second "Global 6G Technology Conference" was held recently, and compared to the low profile of the first one, this one has many heavyweight experts speaking out, with a more detailed explanation of the technology and direction of 6G. 6G is no longer an illusionary concept, but a prospect to start pursuing. Of course, it is not yet possible to say that the 6G era is about to open. The communications industry is widely expected to wait until after 2030 for the official commercialization of 6G. The reason why 6G is being discussed so enthusiastically in the 5G era is that it is an old tradition in the communications industry: 5G was explored in the 4G era and 4G in the 3G era, and this is how it has come about. We can believe that, with the current starting point, the fever of 6G will continue for many years until it is put into commercial use and will not stop. Then, the communications industry needs to tell two stories: first, to the industry, believing that 6G technology has a bright future; then to the majority of users, believing that 6G technology has a huge creative power for life, work and the economy. The slogan "4G changes life, 5G changes society" has been deeply rooted in people's hearts, so what can 6G change? How does 3G/4G/5G tell the story? To make 6G tell a compelling story, let's first review how 3G/4G/5G tells a story. To be honest, there is nothing new in the main storytelling line. The media usually use downloading to describe it graphically: 3G network speed can download a music in a minute, 4G network speed can download a movie in minutes, 5G network can download a movie in seconds ...... These stories have not been fully realized, partly because the media misunderstand communication technology, often using theoretical speed of technology in reality, and the communications industry has chosen to recognize the exaggerated results intentionally or unintentionally. However, the perceived network speed of users is affected by multi-dimensional factors such as network deployment density, user size, and terminal equipment, and there is a large gap with the theoretical network. But in any case, 3G and 4G have indeed profoundly changed the life of the public and triggered the prosperity of the mobile Internet industry. 3G technology, which was initially claimed to be "able to make video calls", has turned into national video applications such as WeChat video calls, Jitterbug and Racer in the 4G era. Users are also happy to support higher tariffs for faster network speeds. But this main line has become a bit reluctant in the 5G era. 5G network speed is 10 times faster than 4G, but users are not sure what they can use it for, in short, 5G lacks "killer applications" in the consumer side. The communications industry no longer considers speed as the only selling point of 5G, but also emphasizes its low latency capability, high reliability, and large connectivity, and instead is exploring the prospect of 5G applications in vertical industries. On the consumer side, 5G has more than 10 years of life left in it, and a new story line is still being nurtured. Only when the story of 5G can be told smoothly - the consumer side and the industrial side - will 6G have a story to tell. Will metaverse be the new main line? In this 6G technology conference, Wu Hequan, a heavyweight expert in the communications industry and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, took the lead in questioning the logic of 6G's bandwidth enhancement. The company's main goal is to provide a wide range of services and services to the public. Download, has long been the bottleneck of the network, the generation of users on the memory of the slow network speed, is rapidly dissipating, the new generation of users are more concerned about, is holding a hundred megabit gigabit network speed, in addition to brush video (including the industry end of the upload video), what else can be done. Then, as a journalist, the first thing I associate with is the hot "meta-universe". After all, in Zuckerberg pressed a trillion-dollar company as a bet, the shock is really too big. Although in the short term, the full-scale entry into the metaverse has brought Meta (the Chinese name is Meta Universe, renamed by Facebook) a huge financial loss and a sharp drop in its stock price, the virtual world represented by the metaverse, which maps and interacts with the real world, has opened up the imagination of the industry through the VR/AR enlightenment. 5G and the metaverse have been discussed together to some extent. As for the relationship between 6G and metaverse, Wu Hequan commented that metaverse needs 6G, the peak throughput of real-time interaction of holographic display may reach 150Gbps/s, even if 100 times of compression, the average throughput should reach 1.5Gbps/s, multiplexing may reach Tbps level, 5G will be difficult to support. However, the meta-universe is for consumer applications and may be extended to the industry, not the immediate need for 6G. For the main story line, 6G is enough of a talking point to support it. After all, it is too old-fashioned to continue talking about downloadable movies, and discussing the interconnection of everything and the unification of space and sky is too distant and lacks a sense of reality for users. In contrast, the concept of metaverse is sexy, and if it becomes synonymous with the new generation of mobile Internet in the future, 6G will be more attractive to users. Of course, this is still in the very early stages. According to the law of mobile industry development, 6G will really whet the appetite of consumers until around 2027. I hope that by that time, the logic of the 5G story has been told, for example, based on the 5G full coverage high-speed network to achieve a high degree of autonomous driving, revolutionizing the transportation industry, then for 6G, there are more stories to tell. 5G success first, then 6G future The mobile communications industry has been passed down from generation to generation, and 6G is not a castle in the sky, but is built on the strong infrastructure and commercial success of 5G, and there will be no exceptions to this. Just as 5G's current progress relies heavily on the already successful 4G network, even in vertical industries, 4G has been instrumental in breaking new ground. For example, in an interview with C114, Harish Viswanathan, a senior expert at Bell Labs, argued that 5G should smoothly transition to 6G and then gradually move to the latest technology. 6G will be developed on the shoulders of 5G," said ZTE chief scientist Yiyi Ying, similar to the early days of 5G research. Photo: Japan has formed the Beyond 5G Promotion Alliance to compete for 6G voice Therefore, the focus of the communications industry is to promote the commercial success of 5G. This is a very big challenge. A technology expert from China Telecom said bluntly that there is a "serious technology surplus" in the current network system. The industry's understanding and vision of the future is out of touch, including 5G, but also from their own standpoint to see the industry applications, resulting in the inability to match. 6G is attractive to operators, is to "subtract", simplify the functions and do a good job of communication itself. 5G has been commercially available for more than 2 years, but it has yet to take over the "minds" of users, both on the consumer and industrial side. This is not surprising, because in the 2G/3G/4G era, China was a catcher, with mature experience to draw on, and in the 4G era, with a robust industrial chain and massive user resources to achieve beyond. 5G era for the first time in the global leader position, in turn, to explore the path for the world, to solve various "problems", to promote 5G towards commercial success. The world has also taken action, showing unanimous recognition of the value of 5G. When the potential of 5G has been fully explored and there are still unresolved problems, it is time for 6G to make its appearance. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)