UAE-based multinational telecom services operator Etisalat has announced its foray into the next generation of the mobile network with efforts towards 6G realization, conducting research and developing international standards.
Mr. Haitham Abdulazzak, Etisalat’s chief technology officer, revealed the plan during his address at the session titled ‘Setting the roadmap to 6G’ at the ongoing Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the annual trade show for the mobile communications industry.
Etisalat is one of the ambitious players moving towards the sixth generation of the network. According to experts, 6G will bring about much faster data speed, estimated to be 100x faster as well as lower latency and higher reliability than 5G.
The introduction of new features, capabilities and use of millimeter frequencies seen in 5G is expected to be complemented with terahertz spectrum in 6G, Etisalat said in a statement.
Haitham AbdulRazzak CTO – Etisalat
“The achievements by Etisalat today in 5G coverage, cloud-native, slicing, multi-access edge computing (MEC) development, AI and automation platforms, as well as high fiber penetration which stands at more than 99 percent of UAE populated area coverage, is a result of the long term strategy paving the way towards 6G. We are committed to bringing the latest technologies to the UAE market to enable digital societies.”
Etisalat is upgrading the tools and capabilities of its research and development (R&D) center to enhance the contribution towards 6G global standardization within the international fora and alliances.
The 6G network will see the transformation of use cases targeted by 5G into a fully integrated autonomy, enabling robotic humans operation, sophisticated human-to-human, human-to-machine and machine-to-machine relationships.
“However, 6G technology will require communications governance and increased collaboration across multisector stakeholders. The technology is seen as an enabler of new coverage dimensions in space and maritime in addition to the terrestrial dimension,” Etisalat said in a statement.
