6G and Beyond

As the technology currently enabling 5G innovation continues to evolve, it is essential for the industry to look to the future and ideate around the capability of future generations, including both 6G and 7G. The world looked completely different when 5G was first considered – how will it look when 6G is implemented, and how do we plan for technology that accounts for these unknowns? 

Andy Thiessen poses these questions to a panel of experts, featuring Walid Saad, G. Jason Schnellbacher, Prasanth Ananth, and Venki Ramaswamy. In a riveting discussion ranging from past to present to future, these industry professionals cover what necessitated advancements in 5G, what’s currently lacking, and where innovations need to be focused for a successful rollout and implementation of 6G. 

Initially brought up by Jason, the topic of increased uplink capability is touched on numerous times during the panel. In particular, Prasanth points out how moving to an AI future with a greater reliance on robots will require high uplink/low downlink, which is essentially a direct flip of the current design. Venki brings up a prescient point about how when 5G was initially designed, the world was completely different, and now as we move forward into future generations, there are different priorities (green, energy, sustainability, etc.) that must be taken into account during design and implementation. 

Something particularly exciting about the panel’s discussion is their points of view around spectrum and spectrum sharing. Their interest extends beyond capability and into what the U.S. is uniquely capable of providing not just for innovation, but for architecture as well (a critical necessity for the expansion of networks across the nation). 

Moderator: Andy Thiessen

Panelists: Walid Saad, G. Jason Schnellbacher, Prasanth Ananth, and Venki Ramaswamy