• OPPO has published a pair of whitepapers looking at what 6G is expected to deliver in future.
• As with 5G, much of the experiences are entertainment-focused.
• We could also see a mobile metaverse come to fruition thanks to the speeds that 6G would offer.

With the dust having settled on Mobile World Congress 2024, OPPO has shared a pair of whitepapers looking at 6G. 

In particular the company has looked at how 6G would empower the creation of two potentially massive ecosystems – Mobile AI Computing and the Mobile Metaverse. 

While we are still some ways off from 6G being deployment at the same rate that 5G has in recent years, looking at some of the theoretical speeds that have been bandied about for this mobile broadband standard, it could be significantly faster than what is currently available via 5G. 

To that end, it’s estimated that 6G will deliver speeds of up to 100 gigabits per second (Gbps) or around 1 000 times faster than the average 5G mobile data download speeds.

If those theoretical speeds are reached, OPPO says, “the faster and multidimensional data transmission, enhanced AI capabilities, and improved data perception,” could “merge physical and virtual worlds.”

Here the company has, “proposed a ‘Minimized Kernel’ system design that provides a basic set of common capabilities accessible through a minimal core subsystem, together with a set of subsystems optimized for specific use cases.” 

“By using a ‘minimal-to-full kernel switching’ approach, the proposed system design enables on-demand access to the optimal processing units, realizing efficient, flexible network performance with low costs and low power consumption to provide the foundations for future communications systems,” it added.

All of this could result in the creation of the aforementioned mobile metaverse. While AI has since overtaken the metaverse as the technology du jour of late, the speeds on offer from 6G would make accessing persistent digital ecosystems far more viable, along with potentially removing the need for dedicated headsets too. 

However, there are a few challenges that would need to be addressed in order for this to happen, according to OPPO. Here the company’s whitepaper explains that elements like an immersive display, environmental sensing, real-time control, ubiquitous coverage, and more in order to bring this concept to fruition.

“6G needs a comprehensive mapping ability to the physical world. Therefore, in addition to the high data rate, low latency and high reliability 5G has already provided, the capabilities of ubiquitous connectivity and the sensing of physical environment should also be expanded,” it highlighted.

“In the industry’s vision of 6G, on the one hand, the 6G system should achieve higher system performance than 5G in a wider usage scenario than 5G. On the other hand, it should also achieve a ‘minimized’ system, significantly reducing deployment and operat- ing costs, so as to truly achieve universal implementation in hundreds of vertical indus- tries,” it posited. 

There are quite a few technologies, conditions, and aspects that need to coalesce before we can all start using our smartphones to utilise the mobile metaverse, but 6G would be the backbone that brings knits it all together.

“Facing to this seemingly contradictory design goal, the only feasible solution can only be to design a number of ‘flexibly converged’ subsystems on a minimized common kernel.This design allows the 6G subsystem in each scenario to be properly decoupled and opti- mized, and achieve a ‘simple and versatile’ 6G system that only provides the functional- ities and capabilities when they are truly needed,” it continued.

We are still many years from 6G becoming a more realistic conversation, but to download (PDF) and read OPPO’s 2023 6G White Paper, head here.

[Image – Photo by GuerrillaBuzz on Unsplash]