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European 6G R&D ramps up


​With 5G barely out of the lab, work on 6G is already shifting into high gear. CEA-Leti, a CEA Tech institute, is engaged in several European projects that kicked off at the start of this year. But don't expect access to 6G networks before 2030.

Published on 9 February 2021

​5G rollout is still ongoing, but that hasn't stopped Europe's scientists from working on the next telecommunications technology. Several EU projects on 6G kicked off early this year. RISE-6G, coordinated by CEA-Leti, is one of them. The EU hopes that this and other 6G projects will help it stay ahead of China in the global race to set the standard for 6G.

In general terms, 6G will improve upon 5G, of course. Tomorrow's 6G networks are expected to offer 1,000 times more bandwidth—vital to coping with the exponential increase in data as applications like augmented reality, connected glasses, holographic displays, and connected cars, drones, and robots gain traction.
Latency will also have to be addressed. 5G made good progress to this end, but 6G will need to reduce latency even further, to under a millisecond. This will be crucial to Industry 4.0 and interactive augmented reality, for instance.

Last but not least, communications to and from objects moving at up to 1,000 kph in space, in the air, on land, and at sea will be possible thanks to 6G. 5G's millimeter waveband will be rounded out by sub-Terahertz bands; data transmission speeds will be 100 times higher than what 5G can offer.

6G will power revolutions in IoT (Internet of Things), Industry 4.0, autonomous driving, smart factories, and much more. You'll have to be patient, however, as 6G won't be ready to roll out for a good ten years.

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