The Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance highlights the importance of global collaboration in strengthening digital infrastructure and progress towards a 6G world.
While 5G’s potential is still unfolding, the conversation around 6G is gradually progressing. Positioned as the next evolution of communications networks for the 2030s, 3GPP – the global standards body for mobile networks – has been actively shaping this future through its latest standardisation work. 3GPP’s Release 20 is seen as a significant milestone that finalises enhancements for 5G-Advanced, while simultaneously laying the technical foundations for a 6G network.
With 3GPP having finalised Stage 1 (service requirements for early 6G exploration) of its Release 20 in 2025 and now advancing towards Stage 2 (6G architecture studies) in 2026, the mobile industry is at a pivotal point when it comes to defining what the next generation of mobile communications should be.
The focus of the mobile industry now turns to delivering additional user value, over and above of what can be delivered with 5G, network simplification, sustainability, and a smooth transition beyond 5G, towards 6G. This also includes newly emerging challenges, such as the impact of AI advancements, quantum safety, and resilience – which are among the most debated topics in 6G standardisation.
But what does the global vision for 6G look like?
Mobile operator objectives for 6G
To shape it, key industry players – including mobile network operators (MNOs), vendors and academia – should align to establish a unified path forward for the next generation of mobile connectivity.
The view of leading global mobile operators is that the continuing evolution of the mobile industry, and the underlying technologies, need to be beneficial to end users, operators, and the ecosystem in general.
As the foundation, 6G is expected to be built on the features and capabilities introduced by 5G and learn from its mistakes. Migration from 5G should be approached with minimised complexity, enabling operators to leverage fast deployments, guaranteeing a seamless user experience – notably by providing native voice support from day one – while evolving voice and enriched services in a business-sustainable manner.
6G should create value through new services – that do not force a hardware refresh – supporting a healthy ecosystem and fulfilling the needs for a society that is increasingly relying on ICT.
While new radio equipment is required for deployments in new frequency bands, the evolution toward 6G in existing bands should primarily occur through software upgrades, ensuring a smooth transition. It is important that new 6G Radio Access Technology (RAT) is compared against a reasonable baseline, for significant performance benefits to be demonstrated. For example, as a minimum, radio enhancement candidates should demonstrate significant benefits above and beyond 3GPP Release 18 on the 5G-Advanced standard.
What are the key drivers behind the 6G evolution?
Such technological evolutions should be assessed with respect to their benefits versus their associated impact. To achieve the benefits, the mobile industry needs to enhance operational efficiency, simplify network operations, and enable network exposure to power the development of market-aligned services. With that in mind, modularity, flexibility, and openness have been highlighted as essential drivers.
While the mobile industry needs to develop solutions that meet user demands, investments in network upgrades should be justified by ROI and lead to clear customer value. The solutions should therefore prioritise efficiency improvements, particularly in spectrum utilisation and energy consumption.
The key requirements for future networks
To address key societal goals and global challenges, the future communication networks should be environmentally friendly, economically sustainable, trustworthy, and capable of supporting innovative services justified by realistic needs.
Sustainability efforts should focus on minimising environmental impact, securing economic viability, and ensuring social responsibility across the ecosystem.
Equally important is trustworthiness. Security and privacy should be intrinsically embedded in the 6G architecture system to protect against threats and provide solutions that measurably demonstrate this attribute. It should leverage evolving security paradigms and technologies and implement a quantum-safe approach, zero trust architecture to enhance security, privacy, and resilience.
Innovative services also remain a driving force. For example, a new radio interface should demonstrate significant benefits over and above IMT-2020 – the ITU’s standard for 5G networks – while considering the practical issues related to deployments in a realistic techno-economical context.
Requirements for 6G also involve backwards compatibility with 5G, connectivity, AI, sensing, compute requirements, cost implications, and environmental interactions. Network for AI and AI for Network: association between AI and end-to-end network infrastructure.
When designing a 6G network, the industry should look to incorporate system architecture considerations such as openness, cloud nativeness, and disaggregation, as well as enhancements and new capabilities and trade-off analysis among different capabilities.
The AI surge
AI is advancing at a rapid pace and will remain a dominant force, reshaping society far beyond the 6G era. This includes both ‘Networks for AI’ – using AI to optimise, manage, and evolve network operations – and ‘AI for Networks’ – designing networks that can support AI workloads and applications.
A thorough analysis of AI’s implications for 6G is therefore critical to ensure that future 6G architecture aligns with future AI technological trajectories. 5G’s deployment was hindered by architectural complexity and migration paths. For 6G to succeed, simplification must be a core design principle from the beginning.
Importance of global alignment
The evolution of communication networks is essential for addressing societal goals, ensuring that future communication networks are environmentally friendly, economically sustainable, trustworthy, and capable of supporting innovative services justified by realistic needs. To this end, it is important that 6G standards are globally harmonised.
A key leader in aligning the mobile industry on this path is the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN). As a global, operator-led organisation, NGMN delivers guidance, facilitates collaboration, and drives unity on the route to innovative, sustainable, and affordable next-generation mobile network infrastructure.
With major 6G milestones on the horizon and standardisation progressing, NGMN provides the foundation for engaging with the broader industry and outlines the strategic direction, by clearly articulating MNO requirements at the early stage of standardisation and development.
This article features and cites the NGMN publication ‘6G Key Messages – An Operator View’ developed by the NGMN Alliance Board.
Please note, this article will also appear in the 24th edition of our quarterly publication.
