4G and 5G private networks don't do spectrum sharing well
A professor at the Brooklyn 6G Summit suggested that spectrum sharing will be important for a 6G private networking specification
The 3GPP isn't going to be starting a 6G specification for a couple of years
In the second of six articles from the Brooklyn 6G Summit, we’ll look at a possible forthcoming 3GPP 6G specification for private networking with professor of electrical engineering at the University of Notre Dame, Monisha Ghosh.
A private network is a separate radio network set up for a business or other organization with its own 4G or 5G core. The concept originally started with 4G LTE private networks, with mining operator Rio Tinto deploying the first 4G private network in Australia on the 1800 MHz band in 2013. There are 4G private network specifications and some 5G 3GPP standards work still happening.
Fierce Network spoke to Ghosh on the sidelines of the summit, and she suggested that there would need to be a new private networking standard for 6G that takes into account the increased degree of spectrum sharing in private network environments. “I think 6G should look at what the needs of private networks are and build a standard which is good for using private networks,” the professor said.
One of the hallmarks of private networks - at least in the U.S. - is that they’re mainly operating on Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum, which is a shared midband 3.5 GHz spectrum. “4G and 5G don’t natively operate well in a shared band...we are running into a lot of issues with secondary co-existence in CBRS,” the professor said, adding that 4G and 5G deployments currently have to put “another layer of spectrum management on top,” to manage these networks in shared spectrum such as CBRS.
“I think it’s much better if 6G were to design a sharing native protocol,” Ghosh said. “So that we start from day one to optimize our protocols so that we are aware that there might be other systems on adjacent bands that are not serving the same use case that we are,” she added.
That will be the task for the 3GPP group and other industry bodies. “How do we develop protocols to deal with that?” she asked.
Fierce will be watching as the 3GPP moves toward a 6G specification. Release 21 is expected to deliver the first 6G technical specifications, which will be the release for IMT-2030 submission before 2030.