Bringing 6G Closer to People

Research on sixth-generation cellular networks (6G) has started several years ago, trying to identify societal needs, as well as the technological advances that are necessary to meet such needs. Researchers have developed to date a number of mainstream technologies that will be the basis for standardization activities, starting with 3GPP’s Release 20. In this paper, we examine the achieved features of current 5G networks in comparison to the expected goals at the time of standardization 10 years ago (i.e., the same situation we are now in with respect to 6G). Starting from such considerations, we identify a few issues that might be relevant to research and standardization to bring 6G as close as possible to the actual needs of so many end-users: the ordinary people.