Building the 6G Ecosystem: Opportunities for India in standards development and the path ahead

It is well known that operators across the world have not been able to fully monetise 5G deployments.

As we start work on the development of 6G standards, it is becoming clear even in its early days that much of the existing 5G base framework will continue to be used. Most operators and vendors around the world are inclined towards incremental innovations over the 5G framework to leverage investments made in this infrastructure. It must also be noted that the existing cellular architecture is about three decades old. Moreover, the value addition enabled by cloudification and splitting of the radio access network (RAN) architecture (Open RAN), for end users as well as operators, remains to be seen.

Proper coverage and availability of good signal quality (connectivity issues) will remain crucial to the success of 6G. Interference issues faced in 5G (from what is termed as tropospheric ducting and other MIMO-related aspects) will also have to be addressed.

India has taken the path of leveraging digital infrastructure as a public good. Our 6G vision aims to “design, develop and deploy 6G network technologies that provide ubiquitous, intelligent and secure connectivity for high quality living experience for the world”. In the interest of fostering the 6G ecosystem in the country, the following aspects must be recognised:

• There is greater acceptance now that “telecom service” is a critical national service.
• Divergent views on how 6G telecom standards, use cases/applications and platforms should evolve are becoming more vocal globally.
• As vertical segments evolve, local differentiated services and regulations will strongly influence the technology requirements.
• Communication networks are being increasingly leveraged for national security purposes.

Telecommunications is a critical national infrastructure (CNI) acting as the backbone for modern society and enabling essential services like energy, healthcare, and finance. As a foundational, “telco-grade” utility, it supports secure communications and internet of things (IoT). The key aspects of telecom as a critical service are:

• Interdependency: Telecom supports other critical sectors; its failure compromises energy grids, banking and emergency services.
• Digital backbone: It enables IoT, smart cities and 5G, with machine-to-machine (M2M) connections growing rapidly.
• Essential during crises: Since telecom is designated as an “essential service” during disasters, maintaining network resilience and data integrity is paramount.

This makes it critical for India to develop a strong indigenous 6G ecosystem supported by secure, trusted and resilient supply chains. Standards that address national concerns play a very important role in this equation.

It should also be noted that telecom standards are only one part of the national digital backbone, and there will have to be appropriate data interchange/cloud interoperability specifications in place. This is critical, especially to support “smart city” use cases. The Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI) is working on a digital backbone framework to enable data exchange mechanisms across cloud/data platforms.

High-altitude platform stations (HAPS) have been recognised by the ITU Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) as a key enabling technology for “connecting the unconnected”. In light of this, TSDSI is carrying out technical studies on the use of this technology for extending broadband services to underserved regions, particularly with respect to local needs.

Global divergence on how 6G should evolve

Globally, stakeholders are exploring diverse architectural models, deployment strategies and technology priorities, reflecting their respective market dynamics, regulatory environments and industrial requirements.

Some stakeholders are pushing for the implementation of Open RAN, while others are not keen. Interest in virtual RAN is also not universal. Furthermore, backward compatibility with existing 5G networks is being favoured by a few. The realisation of industry verticals is another segment where there are diverging interests and options.

Some operators are even keen on a status quo as far as waveforms and architecture are concerned, asking for 6G to be a software upgrade over existing hardware. Current discussions in India indicate that we should make a choice of the right waveforms, appropriate enhancements in MIMO technology and network architecture for 6G. Additionally, the development of low-cost solutions, such as “reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS)”, which help in “signal shaping” in certain deployments to improve coverage and signal strength, is essential. TSDSI recently developed a standard on “RIS”, which has the potential to address coverage and signal strength issues for 5G and 6G networks. This work is being further extended to cover various deployment scenarios.

Telecom standards today cover more than just voice and data services. As vertical segments evolve, it is becoming clear that the requirements are mostly local in nature. Going forward, IoT, broadcast, V2X, drones and even sensing will have strong local regulatory and security concerns. Fixed wireless access (FWA) is another area that has gained precedence in India. It is evident that standards for differentiated services and applications not requiring global interworking can be developed locally.

Leveraging communication networks for national security purposes is a real scenario, especially when we look at the use of integrated sensing and communication for drone tracking. This requires ultra-high accuracy localisation and tracking, augmented human sensing, gesture and activity recognition, etc. The term sensing covers a lot of aspects and may include weather reports using weather sensors, imaging data from drones and cameras atop a base station, possible sensory data from one or many user devices, radio frequency sensing devices either mounted on a cellular communications tower or in other possible locations, etc. Using the antenna array available for communication is just one possibility.

Government interest and involvement in standards development for military use cases seem inevitable. Therefore, it may be desirable that standards in this area are developed locally. TSDSI has initiated work in this direction.

Further, when we look at current discussions in global forums, seemingly contradictory requirements are being handled. Energy efficiency goals have conflicting objectives with the push for artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators in RAN/core network nodes, while 6G gigantic MIMO will only increase per base station power consumption, and such use cases have limited deployment scenarios (not applicable to FWA systems as an example). AI use cases in 6G networks are still evolving, with most of these aimed at network optimisation, which may be inconsequential for end users.

Sensing and AI have the potential to open up the Indian ecosystem to differentiated services, the creation of new intellectual property rights (IPRs), and, subsequently, the opportunity to go global.

Based on TSDSI’s interactions with its partners from across the world, it is clear that India and many other countries have similar concerns regarding costs and the utility of technology for meaningful reach to large populations.

Therefore, developing technologies and standards for areas that have strong local needs and do not need global harmonisation is an opportunity for India (TSDSI).

For India to achieve a share of 10 per cent or more of the overall IPRs in 6G, we must develop our own technologies around the main eMBB (enhanced mobile broadband) technology that 3GPP would develop.

To quote an example, ambient IoT technology was developed and deployed inside China before it was brought into 3GPP. A similar approach would be advisable for India as well.

Key areas of opportunity for developing Indian standards include IoT, FWA, HAPS (which has the potential to provide cost effective solutions which would otherwise require Satellites /NTN technologies), V2X (vehicle to everything) systems, sensing technologies, RIS and repeaters to address coverage concerns, small cell ecosystem standards such as gateways, etc.

While TSDSI will continue to focus on participation in global standards development, it will also seek to make appropriate choices in critical technologies to provide India opportunities for differentiation, IPR creation and address issues relating to strategic independence of its critical infrastructure.