{"id":781988,"date":"2026-09-25T08:46:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T08:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/781988\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T08:46:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T08:46:27","slug":"6g-talks-end-with-no-decision-on-5g-migration-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/781988\/","title":{"rendered":"6G talks end with no decision on 5G migration options"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone expecting the 3GPP plenary meetings in Madrid last week to deliver a final decision on 5G-to-6G migration scenarios will be disappointed. The standards group could not agree on which options and how many to allow in the 6G migration architecture, so it delayed the big decisions to the next gathering, scheduled for December in Boston.<\/p>\n

One thing is clear: The baseline for 6G migration is multi-radio access technology spectrum sharing (MRSS). This mechanism allows 6G to be deployed in spectrum shared with 5G. Operators need it to ensure that 6G has decent coverage (using 5G’s lower spectrum bands), capacity and performance in early rollouts. It could also allow them to re-use some existing 5G radio access network (RAN) equipment.<\/p>\n

The debate is about whether to allow additional options to MRSS and, if so, which ones. There are three options on the table (more on that below).<\/p>\n

These are thorny and weighty issues. The decisions made by 3GPP in the coming months will impact the cost, deployment and performance of 6G networks. The migration architecture and options, if any, will influence how operators can re-use 5G spectrum for 6G services and could impact the rate of 6G subscriber growth.<\/p>\n

Related:Can the telecom industry pave a smoother path to 6G?<\/a><\/p>\n

The group has until March 2027 to work it all out, which is when 6G work is due to shift from the study phase to standards setting.<\/p>\n

“Now is the right time to ask all these difficult questions. There’s no urgent need to force a decision when you don’t have to. It’s worth getting a consensus, and the 3GPP community isn’t quite there yet,” said Gabriel Brown, senior principal analyst for mobile networks at Omdia, a Light Reading sister company.<\/p>\n

Tough calls for 6G<\/p>\n

Part of the reason for the indecision in Madrid is that the group didn’t have clarity on MRSS performance and the 6G core network architecture, which won’t be determined until December, said Brown.<\/p>\n

It was apparent that companies have different ideas about what the functionality of the 6G core network will be, according to Emil Olbrich, president of PrimeLime consultancy, who attended the plenary meetings and reviewed the company submissions.<\/p>\n

“Because we don’t exactly know what that looks like \u2026 I like that they took time and are not rushing to a decision on this \u2026 because it will be very impactful,” Olbrich told Light Reading.<\/p>\n

He summed up the three options in a LinkedIn post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Option 1: 6G-anchored dual connectivity<\/p>\n

Option 2: 5G-anchored dual connectivity<\/p>\n

Option 3: Dual-stack\/dual registration<\/p>\n

The first option had the most support, followed by the third, while 5G-anchored dual connectivity had the least backing. The lack of interest in Option 2 makes sense because it looks very much like 5G Non-standalone (NSA) and not many want to do that again in 6G.<\/p>\n

Related:6G is shaping up to be a big multivendor letdown<\/a><\/p>\n

“It seems that Option 1 will get agreed to in December, Option 2 will die, Option 3 will go to SA [Service and System Aspects, one of 3GPP’s main technical specification groups] and quietly become an interworking feature rather than a migration option,” wrote Olbrich.<\/p>\n

Avoiding 5G missteps<\/p>\n

However, there is solid backing for MRSS alone with no options at all. Olbrich noted this is supported by Apple, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Jio, Korea Telecom, Nokia, T-Mobile and Telstra.<\/p>\n

“MRSS and 6G carrier aggregation with fast handover to 5G when needed \u2013 that would be the simplest and cleanest migration architecture,” said Omdia’s Brown. The argument some make for no options is that if you allow them, then you “forevermore carry forward the compromises,” he explained.<\/p>\n

MRSS-only is the position of the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance, which represents some of the world’s largest operators. The group argued in its paper submitted<\/a> to the plenary meetings that any options will need to have good reasons to justify the “additional standardisation, implementation, and operational complexity introduced.”<\/p>\n

Related:What AT&T really wants from 6G<\/a><\/p>\n

The deliberations around 6G migration and core architecture appear more fraught than in the past, as if haunted by the choices made for 5G.<\/p>\n

In a statement accompanying the white paper, Guangyi Liu, Chief Expert of China Mobile and NGMN Board Director, said, “5G taught us a hard lesson: too many migration options led to fragmentation, delayed rollouts, and costly retrofits. For 6G, let’s not repeat that \u2013 with 6G Standalone as the target, MRSS should be our baseline, and any alternative needs to prove it is worth the extra complexity.”<\/p>\n

In the transition from 4G to 5G, five options were accepted, but only two were implemented. “We thought choice was better back then, and it really wasn’t,” said Olbrich.<\/p>\n

Preventing a ‘multi-billion-dollar flop’<\/p>\n

But for MRSS, it is clear from last week’s meetings that more studies are needed to understand the size of efficiency losses when 5G and 6G share spectrum and how that might affect performance. Many simulation results were presented, but attendees did not have time to absorb and discuss them, said Olbrich, although the results set the stage for discussions. The loss should be around 3% or less, he added.<\/p>\n

Although there were expectations for a decision on 6G migration last week, there is a sense that it is better to have no decision than a wrong one. And there is time to work through the uncertainties and towards consensus.<\/p>\n

“If you get that decision wrong, it’s a multi-billion-dollar flop,” said Olbrich.<\/p>\n

Taking three more months to work it out looks worth it from that perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anyone expecting the 3GPP plenary meetings in Madrid last week to deliver a final decision on 5G-to-6G migration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[2306,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-781988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-mobile","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}