High-Speed 6-G Internet

The Prime Minister Modi unveiled Bharat's 6G Vision Document and inaugurated the new International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Area office and Innovation Centre .The 6G Testbed was launched to provide a platform for academic institutions, industries, start-ups, MSMEs, and others to test and validate evolving ICTs. The Bharat 6G Vision Document and 6G Testbed will provide an enabling environment for innovation, capacity building, and faster technology adoption in the country.

6G Technology

• 6G is a technology that does not exist yet, but is envisioned as a much faster and superior communication technology compared to 5G.
• The 5G services was launched in October 2022 in India and recently the PM has expressed his desire for India to be ready to launch 6G services by 2030.
• 6G promises to offer internet speeds up to 100 times faster than 5G, with speeds up to 1 terabits per second and ultra-low latency.
• The vision document outlines various use cases for 6G, including remote-controlled factories, self-driven cars, and smart wearables that take inputs directly from human senses.
• The rollout of 6G technology will need to balance growth with sustainability, as most 6G supporting communication devices will be battery-powered and can have a significant carbon footprint.

India’s 6G roadmap: Bharat 6G project

• The government has launched the Bharat 6G project and its implementation will take place in two phases, overseen by an apex council appointed by the government.
• The council's responsibilities include standardization, spectrum identification, ecosystem creation, financing research and development, and other related issues.
• The council will facilitate and finance research and development, design and development of 6G technologies by Indian start-ups, companies, research bodies, and universities.
• The council aims to make India a leading global supplier of affordable 6G telecom solutions by identifying priority areas for research based on India's competitive advantages.
• The council will prioritize research on new technologies such as Terahertz communication, radio interfaces, tactile internet, artificial intelligence for connected intelligence, new encoding methods, and waveforms chipsets for 6G devices.
• In phase one, explorative ideas, risky pathways, and proof-of-concept tests will be supported, with promising concepts receiving further development in phase two.
• The government will need to explore shared use of spectrum, reassessment and rationalization of congested spectrum bands, and adoption of captive networks for Industry 4.0 and enterprise use cases.
• The document recommends opening up a few bands to generate demand and expanding and positioning a larger mid-band to meet the requirements of 5G+ and 6G technologies.
• The creation of a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore is recommended to fund research and innovation on 6G, with two tiers of grants proposed.

International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

• ITU is the United Nations' specialized agency for information and communication technologies.
• The agency is headquartered in Geneva and has a network of field, regional and area offices.

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