Thank You 5G, Hello 6G! 

While India has set itself on the road to 6G R&D and deployment over the next five to six years, the rest of the world, especially the developed economies, appear to be desperate to grow bandwidth in the wake of large-scale digital transformation efforts undertaken by enterprises –  large, medium and small. 

The government has stated the mission objectives of Bharat 6G on the website, and has reportedly started work around some milestones and timelines. There are six task forces already functioning under the Telecom Innovations Group (TIG-6G) focussing on innovations around solutions and device ecosystems, spectrum management among other things. 

The Bharat 6G mission statement is itself quite clear around facilitating and financing R&D around the design and development of 6G that would enable India to lead global IP supplies around products and affordable solutions. The target set for 6G implementation is 2030, the same as most of the developed countries, including the United States. 

India could lead the IP race for 6G

A white paper titled “The Evolution of 5G Spectrum” prepared by 5G Americas, has now drawn up a strategy for fulfilling both advanced 5G and 6G spectrum needs in the region. It highlights the fact that developing a comprehensive licensed spectrum pipeline would be crucial to the future deployment of advanced telecom capabilities. 

While the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in India has been silent on the pace and progress of its Bharat 6G mission, Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw believes that by 2029, India would be in a position to contribute significantly to the global 6G deployment. Informatively, the Bharat 6G mission was launched by PM Narendra Modi last March. 

The minister believes that the Bharat 6G Alliance that brings together domestic industry, academia, national research bodies and standards development institutions would help the country become a global leader in IP for both products and solutions. This alliance has an MoU in place with the US NextG Alliance to explore collaboration opportunities in 6G tech. 

In addition, the government has also set up test beds through IIT Madras, IIT Guwahati and IIT Patna for developing 6G use cases. While 5G is still being rolled out, stakeholders are looking down the road at 6G use cases such as multi-sensory extended reality, holographics-based communication and communication with sensing capabilities. 

6G could go beyond Smartphone usage

In fact, the white paper notes that these types of innovations down the years will require additional bandwidth and extremely low latency. In addition, use cases from enterprises would fuel the need for additional licensed spectrum as industries digitize operations further and connect daily workflows through high speed internet networks. 

Over the past 18 months or so, India seems to have played its cards to at least keep pace with the Chinese, who are ahead on 6G technology, thanks largely to homegrown market leaders such as Huawei and ZTE. Informatively, these companies are not favored by India post the bloody clash between the Indian Army and the PLA at the Galwan Valley in 2020. 

However, the Chinese aren’t the only ones leading the race as both South Korea and Japan are also steaming ahead, as are Finland and the United States. These countries are also conducting extensive research around 6G use cases, which suggests that India’s efforts via the Bharat 6G mission isn’t misplaced. 

The success with 5G rollout will help

More so, because India ranks among the top three 5G enabled nations with over 125 million users as on date. Minister Vaishnaw noted that data from last September indicates that around 6.16 lakh villages of the 6.44 lakh villages in India have mobile connectivity. An even more staggering figure relates to mobile internet users who grew to 88 crore in August from 25 crore in March of 2014. 

Meanwhile, the white paper suggests that the next telecom revolution could see bandwidth going beyond smartphones to support services such as extended reality, connected cars, fixed wireless access and enterprise-only applications. In addition to these new use cases, cellular traffic could spike fourfold over the next four years, it adds. 

In fact, the paper notes that if countries have to support future 6G applications, they need to focus on mid-band ranges of 3.1 to 3.3 Ghz, (for US markets) 4.4 to 4.8 Ghz (identified globally for IMT usage), 7.125 to 8.5 Ghz (for coverage and capacity expansion), 12.7 to 13.25 (for high capacity) and 14.75 to 15.35 Ghz (for global IMT identification). 

India has achieved success in the midband levels as Reliance Jio showed with its large scale expansion based on the 3.5 Ghz. What’s more, the company has used forward thinking to invest in the extreme low band (700 Mhz) as well as the extreme high band (26 Ghz). So, from an infrastructure point, India is on target, all that remains to be done is develop smart use cases.