Ready to Talk 6G? Nokia Sees 6G in Terahertz Band Supporting 1,000 Gbps

Wireless equipment provider Nokia expects the International Telecommunications Union to begin work on defining the next generation of wireless technology to be known as 6G in 2021. But the company already has some ideas of its own about what 6G should look like. Nokia visionaries see the technology supporting peak speeds of 1,000 Gbps, and they see service being deployed in the terahertz (THz) band, which is even higher frequency than the multi-gigahertz (GHz) millimeter wave bands that are being pioneered for 5G.

Nokia put forth its 6G vision in a 40-page white paper, which also anticipates that 6G networks, devices, and the entire 6G ecosystem will be developed more “holistically” and will be developed from the get-go to use artificial intelligence for a range of functions, including network optimization. The need for a more holistic approach to 6G development is driven by the realization that advances in computing power are not keeping pace with new mobile requirements – a realization that already is driving the development of edge computing, which the authors see being further refined for 6G.