- With the Nvidia investment in Nokia, 6G has come to the fore
- Dell'Oro thinks 6G will be a bright spot for RAN
- Ericsson and partners are already doing video research for 6G
It has been a big week for 6G cellular, long before the actual standard is expected to be laid down in 2028.
Yesterday, Nvidia said it planned to invest $1 billion in Finnish telecom vendor Nokia, in part, to help it “build 6G in America.” The Nordic vendor does have some presence in the United States but the investment was really based on vibes between the vendors, to hear Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang tell it.
At this early stage, all Nokia has done on 6G, so far, is some “early” radio work, according to Nokia CEO Justin Hotard. There will be a hell of a lot more work to do before the standard comes to pass.
Dell’Oro’s 6G predictions
Commercial 6G networks will likely arrive in a 2030 timeframe. Dell’Oro Group has said this week that cumulative 6G radio access network (RAN) investments over the 2029-2034 period are projected to account for 55% to 60% of the total RAN capex over the same forecast period.
"Cumulative RAN for the 2029-2034 period is in the $200 billion to $250 billion range," Stefan Pongratz, VP of RAN and telecom capex research at Dell’Oro told Fierce. "This is just RAN. Mobile Capex is roughly ~5x of the RAN capex so the cumulative wireless capex is closer to $1 trillion."
“Our long-term position and characterization of this market have not changed,” Stefan Pongratz said in a statement. “The RAN network plays a pivotal role in the broader telecom market.”
“There are opportunities to expand the RAN beyond the traditional MBB use cases. At the same time, there are serious near-term risks tilted to the downside, particularly when considering the slowdown in data traffic,” he added.
Despite an expected CapEx ramp in 6G spending as 2030 rolls around, overall RAN spend will remain flat through the decade, the firm expects.
6G video
Meanwhile, on Monday, Ericsson and Nokia partnered with Berlin’s Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI), to drive the next generation of video coding to deliver better immersive video user experiences in the 6G era.
Researchers from the organizations have already jointly demonstrated a new video codec with considerably higher compression efficiency than the current standards (H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, and H.266/VVC) without significantly increasing complexity, while also improving energy efficiency and scalability.
“Our partnership video codec achievement not only shows the ability of European technology leaders to come together and pioneer breakthroughs, but, by being prominent at the very start of the process, also flags our combined determination and commitment to shape the next generation of standards,” said Magnus Frodigh, head of research at Ericsson said in a statement.
This is the start of the research and development (R&D) for 6G. As Fierce has said before, this will help vendors to build up patent families around the new cellular standard.