US Begins Planning for 6G Wireless Communications (wsj.com) 76
The Biden administration is beginning to plan for 6G wireless telecommunications, seeking to expand internet access while reasserting U.S. leadership in a sector where China has notched gains. WSJ: The White House on Friday will meet with corporate, government and academic experts to begin developing goals and strategies for the new 6G communications technology, which would have the ability to take cloud computing and the mobile internet to true global ubiquity, among other improvements. The next generation of telecom is still years away from deployment, but it could pave the way for global internet access still unavailable with the current 5G standard, which makes smartphone downloads and wireless hot-spot connections faster. Expanding access to the internet has been a priority for the Biden administration as part of its infrastructure initiatives. The 6G planning initiative also aims to reassert the leadership of the U.S. and its allies in telecommunications, where China has made gains thanks in part to careful nurturing of homegrown equipment manufacturing and increased participation in international standard-setting.
To coincide with the next Covid vax rollout? (Score:5, Funny)
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If they actually alter DNA, morons should take advantage of the upgrade opportunity.
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Mod parent 2G Funny?
Re: oh no (Score:2)
We should've ended the kookbots' reality by sticking them in the mental ward the moment we got wind that they were going to burn down cellphone towers.
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Obligatory Spinal Tap comment...
But it goes to 11...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Make it 7G! (Score:4)
Leave China in the dust and skip 6G entirely!
Yes, tech moves forward, but it's really unclear who the market is going to be for this.
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Re: Make it 7G! (Score:2)
Re: Make it 7G! (Score:2)
Like sticking "HD" or "4K" onto a toaster oven. Or that qwack 'medical device' which was a box of blinking lights that hooked up to a tape player claiming to be a "virtual fantasy" device used to cure some mental ailment, and cost a thousand dollars.
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"We'll have the most G's, believe me! In fact skip G's, go to H's, no wait, Z's! We'll have 999Z technology! Your phone will do your taxes, fetch a burger, and get you out of jail at the same time! And it'll have flying cars. [cnn.com] The best part, Chimexico will pay for it all!"
Just how are you planning to do that when (Score:3)
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Being suspicious is fine, but don't forget that the US isn't the only nation's government that wants to do bad things with the US wireless networks. Like it or not, it's still national infrastructure and a national security interest.
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National Security is being used as justification for much activity that would have, once, been illegal. And still ought to be.
That's not the excuse I will accept any more. It's cover for whatever they want to do.
Re:US government planning for 6G Wireless... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you cared that much about surveillance then you shouldn't own a cell phone.
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And there you are, logging into /.
Yeah, I choose my risks. Or try to, those I've been given a choice in.
Re: US government planning for 6G Wireless... (Score:1)
Re: US government planning for 6G Wireless... (Score:2)
You think I trust 5G? But it's an acceptable risk, after all, I'm here doing this.
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You can own a cell phone, just don't take it with you.
Given the amount of two factor authentication now required you pretty much need some way to receive texts. Add to that the number of land lines being abandoned cell phones are pretty much required.
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So you trust corporations to make plans that are in your best interest? You're in for a nasty surprise...
Re: US government planning for 6G Wireless... (Score:2)
Sorry, did I say I trusted corporations? Did I even imply that? Are you mistaking my failure to include corporations in this assessment as accepting them as good actors? I get it because most people, when they're presented with the opinion that the government can't be trusted either try to expand it beyond intention or they try to expand it to absurdity, and discredit it. Excellent performance. Congratulations!.
Only 6g? (Score:4)
6g's already too old. And let's skip over 7, 8, and 9 while we're at it. Let's pull ourselves an XFinity and start planning for 10G!
Or, and hear me out on this...maybe, we can try to get better deployment of our existing 5g technology. Cause when you [att.com] look at [verizon.com] the maps [t-mobile.com], "high speed" mid band 5g doesn't have a wide deployment.
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It's quite annoying that Comcast/Xfinity thought it was a good idea to co-opt a naming standard and apply it to their service/hardware. They are completely relying on most Americans to not realize it's simply a marketing trick to make you believe they are ahead of "5G" speeds/technology.
Who "owns" 4G, 5G branding/naming? Is it trademarked? Could Comcast be forced to stop this kind of misleading marketing? Could I launch a competing 11G internet service?
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To what ends? (Score:2)
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5G is great for home internet. it is way overkill for cell phone usage.
Funny. Neither your home internet nor your cellphone usage was the target of the 5G standard. And there was nothing overkill about it for the latter. 4G and LTE-A were non-functional with large subscribers in a small area.
Not everything is about how quickly you can download porn.
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Not everything is about how quickly you can download porn.
The little man disagrees with this assessment.
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You said "Not everything is about how quickly you can download porn."
But you also said "4G and LTE-A were non-functional with large subscribers in a small area" which most definitely sounds like a lot of people might have been pissed off about not being able to download porn.
Not just about speed, but flexibility... (Score:4)
I'd like to see varying protocols in 6g, be it a radio band for relatively low bandwidth stuff (smart TVs to upload telemetry data and download ads), and has a high range around the tower, ideally not needing much power to transmit/receive on. This coupled with higher bandwidth, spread spectrum stuff, so one's vehicle can send 4k video of everything around it to the car maker, as well as allowing cell phones to transmit their real time data stream with one's health info to their insurance companies.
Having peer to peer, ad-hoc networks that are dynamically created might be useful as well, so if one device is in range of a tower, but another device is in range of the first, it can use the first device to "route" through to ensure advertisers get one's real time browser fingerprinting data at all times.
Having something like Amazon Sidewalk, where devices can chain from each other would be absolutely useful to ensure uninterrupted uploading of that vital telemetry data which the world runs on.
(/s... partially.)
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one's vehicle can send 4k video of everything around it to the car maker, as well as allowing cell phones to transmit their real time data stream with one's health info to their insurance companies.
Calm down Orwell. The rest of us don't want that level of surveillance in our lives.
Re: Not just about speed, but flexibility... (Score:2)
The telemetry bubble is going to pop. Or just die.
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Don't give them ideas to give away more of our data.
If they are going to embed some form of network capabilities into my gear, I better have a way to disable it.
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It's not about the speed, it's about being able to handle a large number of active devices in a limited area.
Ever tried using your cellphone data service when attending a crowded sports stadium or concert venue?
Re: To what ends? (Score:2)
I remember when the Pokemon GO fad was at it's peak and my cell phone data dropped to a couple KILOBYTES pr second with mostly connection timeouts.
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5G is great for home internet. it is way overkill for cell phone usage.
I can't see 5G home internet existing for more than a momentary blip in time.
If you are using high speed 5G you are using higher frequency bands... which implies 5G small cells everywhere... which implies local availability of fiber backhaul... which implies someone will take the initiative to run FTTP at which point 5G home Internet becomes a relic of the past.
There is no competing with FTTP in terms of cost or capabilities.
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Sadly, many telcom companies are not investing in FTTP. So, there you are. That's T-mobile and Verizon's opportunity.
FTTP deployment in the US is going nuts and those deploying include small local and regional operators. If the giant telecoms won't do it sooner or later someone else will.
Re: To what ends? (Score:2)
Not for rural areas! (Score:2)
5G sucks for rural areas. 3G and even 1X were better and more stable! Frak speeds. I was stable and far connections!
Re: To what ends? (Score:2)
"Most iOT will never need more than 2.4 GHz wifi. is there really a need beyond 5G speeds?"
If you live in a neighborhood with many apartment buildings, you'll find 2.4 swamped to the point that it's unuseable.
Thankfuly most users and device manufactures are klewless enough to not use 5Ghz WIFI as the default, but in some places this band is getting swamped as well.
Ya, but ... (Score:2)
Didn't AT&T skip past that already from 5G to "5Ge" to 9G [bbc.com]?
Re: Ya, but ... (Score:2)
ooG (infinity G)
Now we hold the unbeatable position, bow down and lick our feet.
What "US leadership" ? (Score:4)
You mean having the slowest and most expensive Internet access of any developed country on the planet?
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Ya and the best group to lead us in technology will be the government. That will make things move very fast!
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They simply will pass a law that says dog-slow Internet is "high speed"! Oh, wait, they already have done that I think.
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You mean having the slowest and most expensive Internet access of any developed country on the planet?
Wow, so you're saying Canada isn't even a developed country?
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That bad, huh?
Re: What "US leadership" ? (Score:2)
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Due to being one of the first to deploy telephony over copper wires, *and* being one of the larger countries in terms of land area it's not surprising.
When you have nothing, there's a strong incentive to deploy new infrastructure such as fibre. But when you have existing infrastructure that works, no matter how dated, there is far less incentive to upgrade it.
Then you have the costs... A large land area where a lot of that land is built on or owned by someone. You have both the cost due to physical distance
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Excuses, excuses. All bogus. It is simple greed that keeps US providers from offering good service.
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Greed is basically what i said...
Why invest (a lot of money) in upgraded services when people are still buying the existing ones?
The high costs of deploying infrastructure also serve to keep potential competitors out of the market.
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Well, where I live analog got replaced with ISDN and then replaced with fiber. So that reasoning is not universal. But yes, you can put it down to greed and anti-competitive practices. But it is a very backwards strategy for a country to not try hard to really be on board with current tech.
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You mean having the slowest and most expensive Internet access of any developed country on the planet?
Emphasis on the "expensive" part.
Speeds really don't matter to 99% of users in 99% of situations once you get beyond a fairly low threshold (e.g. everyone in a family of 4 could simultaneously have a tablet in one hand displaying HD content from YouTube and a phone in the other hand with a Zoom call and you'd still only be saturating 80% of a paltry 50 Mbps connection). Sure, there are cases where speeds can have a noticeable impact (e.g. large downloads), but they rarely have a meaningful impact (e.g. play
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Well, it seems were companies can get in and offer fiber, the offering is reasonable.
Oh Boy! (Score:2)
Re:Oh Boy! (Score:4, Funny)
You know why 5G spreads covid? You have to be so close to the towers to get a fast signal you're standing next to a huge crowd of people doing the same thing...
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> conspiracy theorists...All those bullshit online posts about it gave me a good laugh.
It stops being funny when the nuts try to "restore the nation" using anarchy and terrorism.
Build the electric fence (Score:2)
Because when 6G starts to roll out the konspiracy kooks will attack these towers like they did during the 5G rollout.
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who knows what 6G will spread
Our butt cheeks.
Re: Oh Boy! (Score:2)
They will be sure that 6G will make the government thought waves pass through their tinfoil hats.
Nothing has changed (Score:1)
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I just recently switched to a 5G phone and I nothing has changed.
With multilateration at 5G frequencies what changed is your location can now be pinpointed to within an accuracy of a meter. The phone company now literally knows when you are taking a shit.
That makes sense! (Score:2)
Because how else were they going to force a bunch of people to update their phone, AGAIN! My old 4g phone was having a harder and harder time finding towers so I broke down and got a new 5g phone. I figure I'll eventually be forced into 6g because well, we need to sell a new handset to you!
What we really want to know is... (Score:2)
Is there a non-paywalled version? (Score:2)
Introducing the Bingabring (Score:2)
"This will change the world! This will make everyone hold hands and sing Kumbaya! The future is here! Buzzword crypto more buzzwords AI synergy lollypop quantum"
"But what exactly does it do? Who cares? I want it NOWI want to be cool!
Crap in a coffee mug (Score:2)
We just started with 5G, finally got the nutcases to stop burning down cell phone towers, and now we are talking about 6G?
And what's the problem we need to create so we can justify this 'solution'?
The Mobile Internet (Score:2)
I was all set to replace my stink-bomb, gas burning vehicles with EVs. But now that I hear they will be switching to 6G and sunsetting 4/5G, I think I'll hold off for a few more decades. I don't want a significant investment in technology to be bricked by the loss of it's mandatory connectivity.
Call me when the wireless infrastructure has stabilized for a few decades.