What About 7G?
So far, 7G has just been a fiction of our imagination, yet it is an indication that we have come to take for granted that evolution will not stop and something new will become reality.
Two days ago I published a post predicting that 6G will become reality around 2035, meaning that people will really start using it. Of course I am expecting labs demo and trials well before that, like it happened in the previous Gs and it is happening now with 5G. 16 Unfortunately the comment did not express on what bases that prediction was made. Anyhow, it made me think. Could we reasonably expect a 7G to occur in 2032?
Some people are making forecast based on the law of accelerated returns. 17 I guess that based on this “accelerated returns” hypothesis you get a shift from 5G to 7G in 12 or 13 years and that might be the reason behind the comment.
18 This is an area where evolution is steered by economics, with technology being an enabler. Besides, the economic drive, provided by the demand side, tends to become weaker and the overall infrastructure is exceeding customers/users needs. More on this in a few moments.
There is another reason why I do not think we will be seeing an acceleration towards new Gs. If you think about the basics of wireless you see that the real technology driver that has enabled the progress from one G to the next has to be found in the evolution (increase) of processing capability supported by the increase in battery density (capacity). 19
So on the technology side there will be evolution and it might just be that the law of accelerated returns may compensate for the slowing down in technology evolution in the processing area, being able to maintain the pace we have seen so far. I doubt it could accelerate that pace.
A.It is likely that in the future we will need to change some aspects of the standardization process. |
B.Personally, however, I do not think that the law of accelerated returns works in infrastructures. |
C.Yet, among the several comments I received, one was stating with certainty that 7G (Yes, 7, not 6) would be available in 2032. |
D.Actually, I do not think that a 6G pervasive infrastructure can be economically sustainable, based on today’s business models. |
E.This, however, cannot go on forever because as you increase power use you have to manage the power weakening. |
F.They state that evolution is accelerating and what used to take 10 years will be taking 7 years, and then just 5 and so on. |