South Korea has ambitious plans to launch 6G in 2028
T-Mobile taught everyone a big lesson about putting accessibility over speed
China and South Korea battled over which country received the most patents for 5G with China responsible for a leading 26.8% of 5G patents last year followed by South Korea’s 25.9%. South Korea is aiming to generate 30% of patents awarded for 6G innovations. But the U.S. is concerned with working out a plan so that it can help mold the new technologies that will be so vital to the U.S. economy and national security. A security official for the Biden administration said, “It’s imperative that we start to look at these issues early.”
Americans haven’t been terribly excited about 5G
More U.S. consumers remain on 4G networks and ABI Research says that at the end of 2023, more than 270 million Americans will be using 4G compared to over 170 million using 5G. Leo Gergs, an analyst at ABI Research, says that the build-out of 5G infrastructure has taken longer to complete in the States than originally thought and consumers don’t see a need to pay more for 5G connectivity.
“For consumers the performance of 4G connectivity is good enough, so that they are less willing to pay an additional fee for the low latencies or faster data rates that 5G promises to consumers,” the analyst said. In other countries, like China, 5G has more momentum. But the U.S. and China cannot be compared since the government in the latter country can force businesses to make certain decisions when it comes to the communication equipment businesses employ.
Discussing 6G so early might end up hurting wireless carriers in the U.S. who are having trouble getting Americans to understand the advantages of faster 5G speeds. While some users might be able to use 5G to download feature-length films faster, eventually 5G is supposed to help launch the self-driving automobile industry and allow surgeons to remotely operate on patients. And as fast as 5G speeds will eventually be, 6G speeds are expected to be up to 100 times faster. But for now, most consumers aren’t seeing any advantages with the availability of 5G.
