Re: [5gangip] Launching 6G Talk

[Alexandre Petrescu <[e-mail]>]

Behcet,

Thanks for the message.

Before the 4G and 5Generation of networks there were also the 5th and
6th generation of computers.

Before the covid outbreak I was almost certain to get my hands on a
connected 5G smartphone before the end of 2020.  Not anymore am I so
certain.  Because I witnessed an average of 10year span between 3G, 4G
and 5G almost up to now.  So I wonder whether in 2030 will I get my
hands on a 6G connected smartphone.

I saw a call for papers on Dec. 3rd, 2019.  In that CfP "Special Issue
on 6G Intelligent Communications", there was an interesting mention of a
PHY topic for 6G.  That is "Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces".  In some
of the trials of 802.11-OCB we considered how such cheap IRSs could
extend radio coverage, thus bringing significant cost reductions.  For
example, on a sinuous road on a mountain, an IRS might be placed at each
curve, and only one 6G base station would be needed.  This is a PHY
layer topic, so probably not to work on at IETF.

On a 5G topic, I heard during the initial phases of the COVID outbreak
that some might blame some things of the virus on 5G; that message was
saying something like Wuhan got the virus because of the 5G deployment
there; I am not sure whether Wuhan 5G is at 3.5GHz, because that is the
only differentiating aspect of 5G compared to 4G that might impact
chemistry/biology, and I admit I know nothing about biology/chemistry.
These 5G-covid relationships seem a stretch to me, as there are many
non-scientific claims about the virus (pollution, magnetic fields; not
to mention the conspiracy theories), but I thought mentioning this blame
of virus to 5G, because I think I heard it in a few places.

In building a hypothetical list of answers to the question of what is
6G, what are its distinctive characteristics, like huge bandwidth,
almost-zero latency, quasi-universal coverage, I would definitely add an
answer telling that 6G uses IPv6 natively and that there is no IPv6 in
UDP/IPv4 encapsulation in GTP; further a more advanced 6G system might
use no other IPv4 address, no 127.0.0.1, no A entry in a DNS in that
network, and no IPv4 stack on computers connected to that network.

Probably, also what people work on right now with Routing Headers at
IETF, might be appropriate to label as "for 6G", if they dare it
strongly enough.  Maybe all new protocols being worked on at IETF
currently might land in 6G space somewhere(?).

Finally, I would like to mention that in Europe recently there were
several ICT-x calls for EU-funded projects that were targetted at 5G.
The successful applicants gained projects that are named with the 5G
prefix, like 5G-CARMEN, 5G-CROCO, and many more.  At this time, however,
I think there is no more open call for 5G oriented projects.  I think
people now ponder over how to create the new calls for new project
proposals for years 2021 to 2027.  I am not sure whether they will be
targetted to 5G, or to 6G or so.  I suspect it's a bit early, but I
really dont know.

Alex

PS: In my humble oppinion, equally important, there are other points
that one could blind herself (himself) if s/he did not consider when
talking 5G, so I must mention them, because they might be important to
6G as well.  The China-USA situation about Huawei, the Huawei strategy
(I think I heard strange potential directions like 5G unit being for
sale if someone wanted to buy it?), the Qualcomm interest, and the
economy slowdown due to virus outbreak.  These points are very high
level, medical, political, well away from technology sophistication.
But, by some long and complicated link, these points might condition
whether or not we need to, or even if we are able to, work on what would
be a natural successor to 5G, 5G+, Beyond 5G...

PPS: Administratively, one might think to rename this list to something
like "6GANGIP" or?  Renaming a list has been traditionally a difficult
task at IETF.  Some people maintain old names between brackets but new
names in the description like "6GANGIP <[e-mail]>", new
[6gangip] in the Subject line; others do mass re-subscriptions to new
lists.  Each time there are difficulties.  But the problem of moving to
a new name for the list is still there, and worth considering.



Le 19/05/2020 à 16:39, Behcet Sarikaya a écrit :
> Hello all,
> 
> Almost about two years ago, mail traffic on this list about 5G 
> started to fade. We believe that now it is time to start discussing
> a new generation of mobile systems, this one called 6G.
> 
> We are not sure if 3GPP is starting to work on the very first steps 
> of 6G but we are already observing that 6G discussions started to be 
> included in the conference call for papers, scopes, etc.
> 
> We invite the list members to inform the list on what are the issues 
> in 6G, what are the requirements, etc. Hopefully the discussions may 
> lead us to any possible work in IETF.
> 
> Regards, Behcet & Dirk
> 
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