The NGMN Alliance (NGMN) has today published its “6G Position Statement: An Operator View”.

The press release announcing the paper is reproduced below. The views published today by the NGMN broadly assert that while 6G will be built on the solid foundations of 5G, the NGMN operator community seeks an evolution – on a global scale – where disaggregation (open, virtualised and cloud native solutions) and software based features will help the operators’ drive towards the next generation.

NGMN publishes 6G Position Statement setting the course for 6G networks

Frankfurt, Germany, 26 September 2023.

Today, the NGMN Alliance (NGMN) published the “6G Position Statement: An Operator View”. With this essential publication NGMN guides a course for the future of communication networks by taking a proactive stance and emphasising the needs for a new paradigm for graceful evolution and successful value creation and delivery.

“Our publication provides a clear statement of intent from the Network Operator community, that the traditional way of introducing a new technology generation must evolve,” said Arash Ashouriha, Chairman of the NGMN Alliance Board and SVP Group Technology at Deutsche Telekom. “NGMN is committed to ensuring that 6G delivers tangible benefits to end-users, simplifying network operations and ensuring sustainability, while offering compelling new experiences”, he added.

“Whatever 6G might become, it will be built on the foundations of 5G. This publication shines a light on the challenges our industry faces in delivering compelling new 6G services and capabilities for end-users”, said Luke Ibbetson, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board and Head of Group R&D at Vodafone. “Simultaneously, as we embark on this journey towards the 6G era, we are actively steering network disaggregation and an open, interoperable cloud native architecture“, he stated.

The publication serves as a comprehensive guide, outlining how Network Operators envision the realisation of a successful evolution to 6G and issuing a call to the industry to embrace this transformative direction.

The publication covers an operator position on such key requirements and design considerations as network simplification, absolute energy reduction, network AI transformation & predictive network management, safe and resilient infrastructure, global 6G standards, software upgrade to 6G, no intrinsic need for hardware refresh, no compromise to existing services (Voice) and access across mobile, fixed and non-terrestrial networks.

Following the NGMN publications “6G Use Cases and Analysis”, “6G Drivers and Vision” and “6G Requirements and Design Considerations”, this latest publication “6G Position Statement: An Operator View” marks the next step towards guidance for E2E requirements for 6G.

“With this “6G Position Statement” we continue focusing on providing guidance and requirements to the industry in the areas of our three strategic focus topics, which build on each other. It is another valuable example of joint global MNO efforts within NGMN which will continue working on 6G E2E requirements, by collaborating with our entire Partnership for the benefits of the ecosystem and end-users”, said Anita Doehler, CEO at NGMN Alliance.

Further information and all publications of the NGMN Alliance can be found on their website at www.ngmn.org