ITU approves 6G vision framework

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has approved the 6G vision framework at its meeting held in Geneva from June 12 to June 22.

The sixth-generation or 6G technology has been named “IMT-2030” by the telecoms agency of the United Nations (UN), according to a statement by the ITU-APT Foundation (IAFI) on Thursday.

“India administration delegation by Mr. T K Roy, DDG in the DoT, played a critical role in getting the ubiquitous connectivity being accepted as a key usage scenario,” the IAFI said.

In March, India released its ‘Bharat 6G’ Vision document which has recommended opening up more spectrum across low-, mid- and mmWave bands. It has also laid emphasis on terahertz (THz) research, as well as, has focused on industry and academic research & development, among others.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while launching the 6G document, had also launched a 6G testbed which he had said will power Digital India.

The ITU’s recommendation for 6G provides the framework and overall objectives for the future development of IMT for 2030 and beyond.

“This new framework recommendation will now become a foundation document for 6G work across the different research groups and in external standards development organizations like the 3GPP,” said IAFI.

One of the key elements agreed upon among the different administrations was the inclusion of elements of interworking across different access services, as per the statement.

ITU now intends to develop interfaces that will allow the interworking of terrestrial 6G network with non-terrestrial technologies, such as satellites, the statement said, citing the satellites being launched by OneWeb, Telesat, etc. Similar interfaces will be developed for other access technologies, including Wi-Fi.

IAFI said it provided input contributions to the meeting on this aspect of interworking and helped drive consensus on this topic at the meeting. The newly approved 6G standard now includes six key usage scenarios, as compared to only three usage scenarios in 5G.