The US government has always been concerned about losing its leadership in the fifth-generation communications technology (5G) field. The Voice of America website stated on the 22nd that the United States intends to surpass China’s advantages in 5G technology by bypassing 5G and increasing investment in 6G through “leapfrog development”. However, a communications expert interviewed by a reporter from the Global Times said on the 23rd that such a leapfrog development is “unlikely.”

Multi-country bets 6G heavily

It’s reported that Bohler, CEO of the US International Development Finance Corporation, a newly established foreign financial investment cooperation agency established by the US government last year, revealed that the US will use “leapfrog development” and invest in 6G to curb China’s leading position in the field of communications technology. Boller said: “We are more interested in what the next trend is. We are interested in 6G, because the United States and other countries will dominate here, and China will not rule this area through subsidies.”

Public reports show that the data transmission rate of 6G may reach 50 times that of 5G, and the delay is reduced to 1/10 of 5G, in terms of peak rate, delay, traffic density, connection density, mobility, spectrum efficiency, positioning capability, etc., 6G is far better than 5G. In recent years, South Korea, the United States and many other countries have begun to deploy 6G technology.

  6G is not only fast

5G technology is not a simple communication technology but a complete and intelligent social system. The 6G communication technology in the United States is likely to be better than 5G, but how to skip the development of other industries linked with 5G is a difficult problem. In fact, without a 5G network, supporting development in multiple fields such as intelligent manufacturing and intelligent transportation cannot be achieved.

Domestic communication experts believe that 6G cannot form a communication network alone. The future communication technology is based on 5G technology, supplemented by 6G, so that 5G technology will become more complete. There is no final conclusion even on what kind of technology 6G is. Although there are various descriptions such as 6G being 50 times faster than 5G, there is no way to describe in detail what 6G is like. It may take until 2023 to have an answer. He said, “The essence of 6G technology is not to solve the problem of fast speed, but to solve the problem of interconnection and intelligence of everything.”

What core technology is needed

So what core technologies need to be developed for 6G? The United States focuses its energy on the terahertz field because the technology theoretically has faster data transmission speeds.  But experts say that blindly pursuing transmission speed may not be the future direction. In order to make data transmission faster, more bandwidth is required. The characteristics of radio waves determine that the higher the frequency, the greater the bandwidth, but the greater the propagation loss and the closer the coverage distance. We have used long wave, medium wave, short wave and millimeter wave successively. At present, millimeter wave has exposed its limitation, that is, it can only communicate in short distance. In theory, terahertz with a shorter wavelength may achieve a larger bandwidth, but its diffraction and anti-interference ability is very poor, and it can only be limited to very close communications, and even heavy fog can affect it. “We may not see hope within ten years of commercial applications in terahertz technology.”

Experts believe that China is very likely to stay ahead in 6G R&D. First of all, China has a huge market; second, both the government and enterprises are very enthusiastic about R&D and invest a lot of manpower and material resources. The technology level of China’s communications industry is also very high; the third reason is China’s industrial support for 6G technology and support in laws and regulations, such as issuing license plates for unmanned driving.