Warning noted. Anyway, networks will be able to\u2026 sense stuff?<\/p>\n
When I started talking to experts about the kinds of things we might expect to see from 6G, one capability stood out to me as the wildest \u2014 and possibly most dystopian: sensing technology built right into the wireless network. And not just the ability to sense connected devices. Network base stations may be able to sense any kind of object using the radio frequency signals that wireless internet travels on. This is called Integrated Sensing and Communication, or ISAC, and frankly it sounds bonkers.<\/p>\n
Okay, but why would we want this? <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can do things like detect traffic patterns,\u201d Fogg tells me, listing a few other examples. \u201cBut one of the real things that\u2019s focused around that is drone detection.\u201d Remember the New Jersey drones<\/a>? Nobody could offer a decent explanation<\/a> for the mysterious UAVs partly because we couldn\u2019t really pin them down. Drones are very small and fly at low altitudes, making them a difficult target for traditional radar. ISAC could do a much better job of detecting them, especially since RF signals have the advantage of being able to penetrate buildings and objects in the way.<\/p>\n Fogg points to public safety and national defense applications for ISAC, which makes a ton of sense. The potential for lucrative government contracts seems like plenty of incentive for wireless network operators to pursue the technology. But Petar Popovski, a professor and researcher with Aalborg University in Denmark, speaking over email, notes the huge privacy concerns. \u201cYou can opt out of communication by turning off your phone, even removing the battery. Opting out of being sensed by a base station is a very different matter.\u201d<\/p>\n Yeah, and it gets wilder. Imbuing base stations with the ability to sense the physical world around them could turn them into a kind of gateway, a \u201cpoint where signals from the physical world enter the digital one,\u201d says Popovski. He says this could give rise to something called physical AI, where AI models gain a better understanding of what\u2019s going on in the real world.<\/p>\n That makes my head hurt. Is there something less terrifying that 6G can do for us?<\/p>\n Ironically, the more down-to-earth application of 6G goes beyond terrestrial networks: satellite connectivity. It\u2019s the single use case that experts seemed to agree would be the most impactful for actual people.<\/p>\n Fogg explains that there are broadly two ways of connecting phones to satellites: directly through satellite spectrum, as Apple is doing with Globalstar, or by using cellular spectrum bands a la T-Mobile and Starlink. 6G could set a standard for seamless switching between cellular and satellite using a bit of both: \u201cThe standard\u2019s focus is very much on an idea of using the satellite spectrum bands alongside the cellular.\u201d<\/p>\n He likens the current satellite experience to using Wi-Fi compared to cellular data: move between cell towers and your connection switches seamlessly, but when you move away from a Wi-Fi signal, \u201cyou are very acutely aware that you might drop a Wi-Fi access point and pick up another \u2026 It doesn\u2019t work as well.\u201d He says the standards bodies are focused on developing a way of making that connection everywhere \u2014 via cell tower or satellite \u2014 so that \u201cit just works.\u201d<\/p>\n Neat, but do we really need all that?<\/p>\n There are valid reasons to want that connectivity away from cell towers. Being able to send a message from an area without signal could mean fewer interruptions of service for people who live in places that lack good coverage. It\u2019s not always practical \u2014 or possible \u2014 to go through the motions of locating a satellite using a GUI on your phone to send a text; a connection that switches between cellular and satellite and back again without your input could literally be a lifesaver.<\/p>\n It\u2019s no small challenge, Fogg emphasizes. Phones have comparatively small antennas and batteries compared to purpose-built equipment for communicating with satellites. A phone can\u2019t require a huge battery pack to work; you can\u2019t affix it to the top of your house. But Popovski agrees that solving those pain points would make a huge impact. \u201cMy expectation is that consumers will actually feel the arrival of 6G the moment their device maintains seamless internet connectivity on a plane, a boat, or in a sparsely populated area.\u201d And that will be the difference-maker compared to the last G, he says. \u201cThere was not a similar, tangible and concrete promise with 5G.\u201d<\/p>\n Okay, I\u2019m down with satellites. What else you got?<\/p>\n Well, this won\u2019t come as a surprise, but AI is involved. Another concept that came up a bunch is an \u201cAI-native\u201d network.<\/p>\n What does that even mean? I can already run ChatGPT on my phone.<\/p>\n Right right. What\u2019s under consideration now is building AI compute right into the network itself. The idea is to use AI to help optimize network operations, but also to equip base stations with more powerful processors and use them as mini data centers to run more AI applications. With general-purpose processors installed in base stations \u2014 rather than proprietary telecom equipment used now \u2014 it would be possible to run communication workloads as well as functioning as \u201ca nice complement\u201d to actual data centers, according to Qualcomm\u2019s EVP of technology, Durga Malladi. \u201cWhat you end up having is what we are calling a continuum of compute that straddles everything from data centers to the 6G network all the way to devices as well.\u201d<\/p>\n I can see the case for AI helping operators determine which levers to pull in order to keep the network chugging along. But I\u2019m having a harder time understanding the need for a GPU in every base station around the world. If it\u2019s a matter of building AI into the network so wireless operators can develop features like real-time language translation (and presumably charge us for them eventually), then it seems we don\u2019t really need 6G to do that: T-Mobile is already offering such a feature<\/a> running on its 4G network. Malladi notes that we \u201cshouldn\u2019t be surprised to see leading telco operators bringing AI services into the network\u201d ahead of and during the transition to 6G. That will put them in a better position to \u201charness all the benefits of 6G,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t want to have to wait five or 10 seconds,\u201d he says. \u201cYou want it to come back as quickly as if it was on your device in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n AI in the network could be much more than that, too. \u201cUsing AI at both the device and the network level, we can create genuinely new multimodal user experiences, something qualitatively different from the smartphone paradigm that has dominated for two decades,\u201d Popovski tells me. Fogg describes something similar, in a format like augmented reality glasses displaying real-time information about the world around you. It wouldn\u2019t be practical to have all of that information saved on the phone that your glasses are connected to \u2014 there\u2019s too much of it and it\u2019s always changing \u2014 and having to fetch it all from a data center would be slow enough to make for a frustrating experience. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to have to wait five or 10 seconds,\u201d he says. \u201cYou want it to come back as quickly as if it was on your device in the first place.\u201d If network providers can process information in a base station that\u2019s closer to the user, the promise of augmented reality starts to look a little more, well, realistic.<\/p>\n Okay, but now I\u2019m getting flashbacks to 2016. Is this just going to be the 5G hype cycle all over again? <\/p>\n Maybe! But it might help to understand why 5G fell so short of all the lofty promises. Fogg recalls Mobile World Congress 2016 being filled with fantastic 5G use cases at every booth. \u201cWhat actually happened was that 5G launched with non-standalone, and most of those things you couldn\u2019t really do until you had the 5G standalone core.\u201d T-Mobile got a big head start<\/a> in that department thanks to Sprint\u2019s spectrum, which was ideal for 5G. Verizon and AT&T are still, slowly, rolling out standalone 5G \u2014 meaning 5G radios are in use right now, but most of the computers that run the network, or the \u201ccore,\u201d are still based on 4G.<\/p>\n David Witkowski, CEO of Oku Solutions and a senior member of the IEEE, sums it up nicely: \u201c5G definitely had sort of a \u2018ready, fire, aim\u2019 deployment.\u2019\u201d And given that kind of rollout, he\u2019s skeptical that the network operators will be in a rush to upgrade to 5G when 6G is so close. \u201cAre we going to skip 5G core and go straight to 6G core? If I were a betting man? I would say yes.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s a bit of a precedent for that kind of move, too. \u201c3G was what some people refer to as a skip standard.\u201d Witkowski says. \u201cWe did some 3G, but realistically we were just biding our time and waiting for 4G, because that\u2019s where the real value came into play.\u201d Maybe we\u2019re in for some 5G deja vu with 6G, or maybe 5G will just fade into the background, just like 3G or an even-numbered Star Trek movie \u2014 an observation Witkowski also makes. \u201cWe don\u2019t talk about the odd-numbered Gs, right? There\u2019s sort of a notion that we\u2019re just going to skip 5G and wait until everything comes together for 6G. I think that\u2019s the best-case scenario,\u201d he says. Based on the preview I\u2019ve gotten about what 6G could be, then maybe that\u2019s not such a bad outcome after all.<\/p>\n Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Allison JohnsonClose Allison Johnson<\/p>\n Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All by Allison Johnson<\/a><\/p>\n 5GClose<\/p>\n 5G<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All 5G<\/a><\/p>\n MobileClose<\/p>\n Mobile<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Mobile<\/a><\/p>\n ReportClose<\/p>\n Report<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n![\"Allison](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ALLISON_JOHNSON.0.jpg\"\/)
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