China successfully sent the world’s first 6G communications test satellite into orbit from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center on November 6. The technology is expected to be over 100 times faster than 5G, enabling lossless transmission in space.
The telecoms industry is still several years away from agreeing on 6G’s specifications, so it is not yet certain the tech being trialled will make it into the final standard.
It involves the use of high-frequency terahertz waves to achieve data-transmission speeds many times faster than 5G is likely to be capable of.
The satellite also carries technology which will be used for crop disaster monitoring and forest fire prevention.
Samsung released a white paper entitled “The Next Hyper-Connected Experience for All.” outlining the company’s vision for the next generation communication system, namely 6G. The white paper covers various aspects related to 6G, including technical and societal megatrends, new services, requirements, candidate technologies and an expected timeline of standardization.
Samsung’s vision for 6G is to bring the next hyper-connected experience to every corner of life. To accelerate research for 6G, Samsung Research, the advanced R&D hub within Samsung Electronics’ SET Business, founded its Advanced Communications Research Center in May of last year.
Examples of 6G performance requirements are a peak data rate of 1,000 Gbps (gigabits per second) and air latency less than 100 microseconds (μs), 50 times the peak data rate and one-tenth the latency of 5G.
