By: Milind Kulkarni

Wireless technology evolves at the intersection of ambition and practicality. Each new generation promises transformational capabilities, but only succeeds when it becomes deployable, scalable, and economically viable. As the industry moves from large-scale 5G deployment into 5G‑Advanced, we are reaching an inflection point that will define the foundations of 6G. The choices made now will determine whether next‑generation wireless becomes merely more capable or fundamentally more valuable.

Our perspective is shaped by long‑term research and daily participation in standards, particularly 3GPP and ETSI. A clear narrative is emerging: 5G‑Advanced is about extracting tangible value from 5G investments, while 6G is about redefining the role of the network itself—expanding beyond connectivity to become a scalable, intelligent platform for industries and society.

The State of 5G‑Advanced Deployment

5G‑Advanced is actively shaping operator roadmaps worldwide. Enhancements such as advanced MIMO and multi‑TRP transmission, improved mobility, network slicing evolution, extended reality support, reduced‑capability devices, improved positioning, and non‑terrestrial network (NTN) integrations are moving from specifications into deployments. These capabilities target field constraints—coverage, energy efficiency, reliability, and operational cost—rather than chasing peak data rates.

Just as importantly, 5G‑Advanced represents the industry’s first meaningful step toward intent‑based and semi‑autonomous networks. AI and machine learning are being introduced to improve beam management, positioning accuracy, energy savings, and network operations. While incremental, these changes are foundational: they prepare networks to scale in complexity without scaling operational burden. They also push the ecosystem to develop the disciplines automation requires, including data governance, model lifecycle practices, and clear human-in-the-loop controls for operational risk.

Lessons Learned from 5G

5G reinforced a hard truth: technical innovation alone does not guarantee commercial success. Despite major performance gains, many operators have struggled to justify return on investment relative to the cost and complexity of infrastructure upgrades. Revenue growth has been driven primarily by enhanced mobile broadband, while enterprise and vertical use cases expected to unlock new monetization paths progressed more slowly than anticipated.

A recurring root cause was deployment challenges. The transition from non‑standalone to standalone architecture was complex, optional feature sets multiplied integration paths, and end‑to‑end performance often depended on multi‑vendor alignment that took time to mature. For enterprises, “using 5G” too often meant acquiring deep telecom expertise, accepting bespoke integration, and tolerating long deployment cycles—driving some to Wi‑Fi or proprietary solutions that were simpler to adopt. The takeaway shaping 6G is straightforward: future generations must prioritize simplicity, clarity, and business viability as first‑order design objectives.

The Scope and Ambition of 6G

6G is being shaped with those lessons firmly in mind, and the priorities are already visible in early 3GPP planning for the 6G study phase. Unlike previous generations, 6G is not defined by a race toward maximum peak performance. The more consequential ambition is to deliver a single, streamlined, standalone architecture that minimizes configuration complexity, limits excessive optionality, and produces predictable behavior across devices, vendors, and deployments. This will demand an aligned spectrum strategy, realistic device complexity, and measurable energy sustainability targets.

In practical terms, 6G needs to be less ambiguous. Flexibility remains essential, but it should be delivered through disciplined extensibility rather than proliferating parallel mechanisms. A globally aligned minimum feature set—with clearer baseline behaviors and fewer branching implementation paths—can reduce the operational uncertainty that slowed 5G standalone adoption. The design target is a platform that scales across deployment models, from national macro networks to private industrial systems, without forcing each use case to become a bespoke telecom project.

Equally important, 6G is envisioned as an extensible platform rather than a collection of tightly coupled vertical solutions. The aim is to establish a harmonized baseline spanning radio, core, and service exposure, so that industries can build applications and domain specifications without fundamental changes to the underlying network. Modular capability exposure through APIs, consistent operation across terrestrial and non‑terrestrial networks, and scalable device classes—from high‑end XR to ultra‑low‑complexity sensors—are central to this approach.

AI as a Foundational Pillar of 6G

Artificial intelligence will be a defining element of 6G, but not as an overlay added after deployment. 6G is being designed to be AI‑enabled from the outset, with intelligence embedded across the radio access network, core, and edge. This implies standardized frameworks for data collection and sharing, model lifecycle management, distributed learning, and policy‑driven control loops that remain interoperable across vendors and