The reality of standards development is that each "generation" isn't revolutionary but evolutionary. The standards groups (which I sat on for 20 years) documents new features, functionalities and fixes based on the experiences of the carriers and vendors sitting in the room.

This is done continuously. At some point, someone decides that we should publish the work we've done lately. A process (an argument) takes place where we review what we've created since the last publication and decide what's ready to be published. Priority is given to things that are fixes. People have their "pet projects" that aren't finished but promise that they can get them done to put in the next revision. Other companies who have a proprietary solution for a feature fight to keep a new feature which could diminish their unique offering out of the next revision. Government mandated features get pushed to the front (Local Number Portability, 911. 6G will certainly have features for the newly mandated 911 requirements). At some point everybody agrees what's going into XG and the rest sits on the table to be continued after "XG" is published. Then there is a year process of editing final standards; voting on approvals and finalizing the release. Some stuff gets pulled at the last minute and some stuff sneaks in. Stuff is put off to "further study" and may or may not end up in the next release.

So if you want to see what's in 6G, 7G...there is a roadmap in the standards committees. Most of it is not earth shattering. Then, once, 5G rolls out, the realities of the design will be revealed and a lot of 6G will be fixes to 5G, just as 5G includes a lot of fixes and improvements to 3G, 4G.

And if people really aren't thrilled with a proposed feature, it's pushed off to LTE. (We'll include that in the Long Term Evolution of the network.)

Ben

Thanks so much for the amazing answer Ben Levitan , it seems that the real deployment and its limitations has a major role in deciding what to include in the standard and what is not, did I get that right?

Yes. You are correct. Some items in standards have been in the field and tested and are just being standardized. Other items are a shopping list of brand new features. In reality, most items will never be implemented. They were thought up in the industry and thought to be useful or clever. When it comes to the issue of "are they needed" or "are they sellable" carriers decide not to implement them without the demand.

You will notice that in the real world there is a lot of 3G and 2G connections. Just because 5G has been published it doesn't mean everybody will "turn off" 4G and turn on 5G. If you wait, to implement the new features and functions until necessary, your costs will stay under control and the cost of the new equipment will have gotten cheaper.

Also, remember. Standards are "backwards compatible". 2G phone will work in a 4G network. Your 5G phone will work in a 3G network but you will only get 3G features. The only exception is that 1G has been abandoned.

One good example - Camera phones. Camera phone came out in the cell phone industry. I recall that there were about 8 different vendors that developed this feature you could add to a cell phone. There were 8 different designs too. It was an expensive option. Also, if you had an AT&T phone you could only send those pictures to other AT&T subscribers. Verizon had a different vendor with a different design.

We all realized that this new feature "picture phones" was very popular and we decided we should "standardize it". Select one design that could be put into any phone and allow people to send picture from any carrier to any other carrier. Then instead of eight designs there would only be 1. So, this was suggested as a new feature for 3G/4G.

When the project started each carrier said, "Yes, we use the design of vendor x. Let's all just adopt that." Carrier #2 said, "Hey, we have 80,000 camera phones out there using vendor y. Adopt OUR design." After 18 months of negotiation we settled on a common design that we published. Now there was one standard design. The costs of a camera in a phone went to almost nothing due to the economy of scale.

And sometime things don't catch on. Nextel had the popular "push to talk". The standards committees decided it would be a great standard feature. (Nextel wasn't happy about that!) The industry developed a feature called "Push over Cellular" (because Motorola claimed the rights to "Push to Talk"). It was standardized and published. Have you seen this feature out there? I haven't. We thought it would be wildly popular.

Thanks so much Dr. Ben Levitan for the great answers and clarifications. I am sure anyone interested in this topic will find these answers enlightening and useful.

Best regards

Dear Mustafa Sadiq Aljumaily ,

6G technology allows bit rates of up to Tbps with a latency less than 1 ms, apart from introducing a group of new services. 6G studies are the key features that aim to foster future 6G in the following dimensions: energy efficiency; intelligence; spectral efficiency; security, secrecy, and privacy; affordability; and customization. I hope you will benefit from this research paper

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-8994/12/4/676/pdf

Thanks so much Ali Hayder Abdul Kareem

I would really recommend you to have a look at my recent paper (6G Wireless Communications Networks: A Comprehensive Survey). Many technologies have been discussed, which I believe will be part of future 6G wireless communications networks. I have also discussed why we really need 6G networks. I hope this helps. Best regards

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9598915

Thanks so much Muntadher Alsabah

I will take a look at it.

Best regards

You can check the following publications which can be helpful.

Thanks so much Muhammad Waseem Akhtar

Best regards

Excellent information on 6G goals. Understand that before we get to 6G the plan is to publish 5G Advanced. Now that 5G is starting to be used in live networks, some changes and adjustments are needed. Also, some work that was not ready to be published in 5G by the deadline will find its way into 5G-Advanced.

Totally agree Dr. Ben Levitan

Thanks for your addition and enrichment of the discussion.

Best regards