Re: [6gip] 6G in 3GPP?

["Flinck, Hannu (Nokia - FI/Espoo)" <[e-mail]>]

Hello

Neither I know any, nor my colleagues any 3GPP documents about 6G. 

3GPP is currently at mid-way with 5G. There will still be a number of releases left for 5G  to come.
In fact, I assume that now when 5G is pushing towards new verticals (mIoT, industry, vehicular, etc.) there will be new requirements for protocol work needed for 5G.
For example, consider the discussion about multi-path support for QUIC in QUIC wg. Similar requests are likely to come.

Therefore, I am on the opinion that 6G work, even 6G related protocol research work in the IRTF, should wait for use cases (and radio extensions) that 5G is not able to respond. 


Best regards
Hannu

-----Original Message-----
From: Alexandre Petrescu <[e-mail]> 
Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2021 10:40 AM
To: Flinck, Hannu (Nokia - FI/Espoo) <[e-mail]>; [e-mail]
Subject: Re: 6G in 3GPP?

Me too I would like to ask I would like whether someone knows of a document on the 3gpp.org site that has the term '6G' in it?

Le 12/01/2021 à 17:55, Flinck, Hannu (Nokia - FI/Espoo) a écrit :
> Hello Alexandre
> 
> In your slides you claim the 6G is discussed in Rel 17. Can you tell 
> in which document or WG?
> 
> I am involved quite a bit in 3GPP as well as in 6G research and I am 
> not aware of any of such discussion.
> 
> Without a reference I must consider that statement be misinformation.
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Hannu

Thanks for having gone through the slides; the slides tried to summarize the discussions on the email list at that time.

It might be that a potential reationship between 3GPP and 6G to be a stretch.

I might bear responsibility of having misread the emails, or read them too quickly, when drawing a conclusion that 3GPP might work on 6G, and writing that down.  Sorry for misunderstanding.

We had some mention on this list of an NGMN alliance (Next Generation Mobile Networks) which initiated a task force on 6G; elsewhere, NGMN is ack'ed as a contributor to 3GPP by a wikipedia article.  That might make it that 3GPP might have some work on 6G.

It might be that some discussions between usual contributors to 3GPP might have mentioned 6G even though there might be no document on 3gpp.org that reads '6G'.  For my part, I do not know what document is Rel 17 more precisely, but I suspect I could find Rel 17 on 3gpp.org.

It might be that other industry alliances (e.g. 5GAA) could be outright opposed to work on things deemed "6G".  It might be that such opposition is supported by other funding bodies.  I do not know why the opposition, but that is the way it is.

If, for some reason, 3GPP considers the talk of 6G to be too early, and why not potentially disruptive to the ongoing work of 5G, then that is a 3GPP problem to solve.  That would not be the only problem they should address.  I suspect a ling standing problem is even the name "3G" in a 3GPP working on something else than 3G (e.g. 3GPP working on 4G or 5G).

I want to tell also that there might be other problems of 5G, on which 3GPP works, and which deserve attention.

Such problems could be solved by working on something new, like 6G.

It is a speculation from my part.

I would like to ask others whether someone knows of a document on the 3gpp.org site that has the term '6G' in it?

Alex