China launched what it claimed to be the first ever 6G experimental satellite to test communications from space using high-frequency terahertz spectrum.
The Chinese embassy in the US capital Washington, DC tweeted that the country’s “6G” satellite was one of 13 aboard the Long March-6 rocket, which launched November 6 at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in Shanxi province.
The 70kg 6G test satellite aims to verify the performance of data transmission using terahertz spectrum and will test a number of smart city, environmental protection and disaster prevention applications, such as crop and forest fire monitoring, according to local media reports.
This sixth-generation mobile access technology has already started to gain momentum as major industry players back a launch as early as 2030.
South Korean giant Samsung expects the ITU-R to begin work on 6G in 2021, with the standard to be completed as early as 2028. This would open the door to the earliest deployments in 10 years.
The challenges to 6G are many, including requiring 100-times the data throughput of 5G and sub-millisecond latency, AT&T executive Mazin Gilbert said at the 6G Symposium last month.
Last year, US operators Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile US and US Cellular joined other operators under the guise of the Next G Alliance, aiming to steer development of 6G and establish North America as a global leader in the technology.
Japanese mobile phone operator NTT Docomo made early moves to develop 6G technology in January with a goal of a commercial launch by 2030 and in May, China Unicom and ZTE signed a strategic agreement to develop 6G technologies.
Studies have also contributed to a lot of progress in the 6G arena. The University of California that claimed significant progress by building a device that can speed up the process of development and save substantial amounts of time during the design phase.
Source: https://www.africanwirelesscomms.com/news-details?itemid=3834#