The NGMN Alliance has issued the “ITU-R Framework for IMT-2030: Review and Future Direction.” In this essential publication, NGMN welcomes the recent ITU-R report on the ‘Framework and overall objectives of the future development of IMT for 2030 and beyond.’ This ITU-R report ( Recommendation ITU-R M. 2160) sets an important framework for future technology discussions towards 6G.

“Our publication underlines the importance of investment confidence for operators in order to deliver tangible value to customers while ensuring the commercial sustainability of current and future networks,” said Luke Ibbetson, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board and Head of Group R&D at Vodafone. “The capabilities identified for IMT-2030 should be able to be deployed as and when required, without compromising existing core connectivity services, and reflect a customer need that generates new value.”

There is close alignment between NGMN’s vision for 6G and the IMT-2030 framework. This close alignment covers vision, usage scenarios and essential capabilities, particularly related to practical and sustainable deployment and emphasizing harmonised global standards for mobile networks. NGMN goes on to provide recommendations and guidance on ITU-R aspects as it moves forward in the next stage of the IMT-2030 process, including:

• New features should be able to be deployed as and when required, without compromising existing core connectivity services, which reflect customer needs and generate new values.
• Evaluation should include interworking of IMT-2030 candidates with non-IMT systems.
• Reinforcement of the importance of global standards for mobile networks within industry consensus-based standards organisations (e.g., 3GPP).
• Consideration that advanced features introduced with the IMT-2020 network and/or a new radio interface might be candidates for IMT-2030.
• Any new radio interface must demonstrate significant benefits over and above IMT-2020 in key metrics such as spectral and/or energy efficiency, overall energy consumption reduction and/or cost advantages.
• Further work would be beneficial, as input to the process and next steps, to understand the commercial imperative for any extreme requirements of IMT-2030.
• IMT-2030 should continue to evolve based on IP communications, considering cloud native solutions, disaggregation, and service-based architecture, ensuring both forward and backward compatibility. Support for self-organisation to manage complexity and emerging capabilities.

“This publication provides a realistic evaluation of IMT-2030 technologies”, said Michael Irizarry, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board and Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Engineering and Information Technology, UScellular. “For a new IMT-2030 radio technology to become widely adopted for 6G, it must demonstrate significant benefits across key metrics such as energy efficiency, traffic capacity and cost reduction”.

“We at NGMN look forward to collaborative efforts with the ITU-R and subsequent phases of activity to shape the future of IMT-2030,” said Madam Yuhong Huang, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board and General Manager China Mobile Research Institute. She added, “We hope the industry will prioritize the development needs outlined by NGMN on behalf of its operator members and actively participate in 6G research, contributing novel technologies, unlocking innovative business opportunities, and enabling the sustainable development of the society for the benefit of our customers.” 

Following the NGMN publications “6G Position Statement, an Operator View”, “6G Use Cases and Analysis”, “6G Drivers and Vision” and “6G Requirements and Design Considerations”, this latest publication “Analysis of ITU-R Framework for IMT-2030” marks the next step towards guidance for E2E requirements for 6G.

The publication can be downloaded here.

About NGMN Alliance:

The NGMN Alliance (NGMN) is a forum founded by world-leading Mobile Network Operators and open to all Partners in the mobile industry. Its goal is to ensure that next generation network infrastructure, service platforms and devices will meet the requirements of operators and ultimately will satisfy end user demand and expectations. The vision of NGMN is to provide impactful industry guidance to achieve innovative, sustainable and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user with a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation / Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks and 6G, whilst continuing to support 5G’s full implementation.

NGMN seeks to incorporate the views of all interested stakeholders in the telecommunications industry and is open to three categories of participants/NGMN Partners: Mobile Network Operators (Members), vendors, software companies and other industry players (Contributors), as well as research institutes (Advisors).

Collaboration is key to driving the industry’s most important subjects such as NGMN’s Strategic Focus Topics: Mastering the Route to Disaggregation, Green Future Networks and 6G.  NGMN invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in these important endeavors.

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At its February 2024 meeting, ITU-R WP 5D produced a working document on the IMT-2030 process for standardization.  The document describes the process and activities identified for the development of the IMT‑2030 terrestrial components radio interface Recommendations.

The time schedule for candidate RITs (Radio Interface Technologies) or SRITs (Set of Radio Interface Technologies is as follows:

Submission of proposals may begin at 54th meeting of Working Party (WP) 5D (currently planned to be 10-17 February 2027) and contribution to the meeting needs to be submitted by 1600 hours UTC, 12 calendar days prior to the start of the meeting.

The final deadline for submissions is 1600 hours Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), 12 calendar days prior to the start of the 59th meeting of WP 5D in February 2029. The evaluation of the proposed RITs and SRITs by the independent evaluation groups and the consensus-building process will be performed throughout this time period and thereafter.

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Editor’s Note:  Don’t expect ITU-R M.[IMT-2030.SPECS] recommendation to be approved before sometime in 2031. The detailed specifications of each of IMT-2030 technology is scheduled for completion at ITU-R WP5D meeting #63 in June 2030.  Draft revisions/spec updates are scheduled to be completed at 5D meeting #64 in October 2030.

Just as with 5G/IMT-2020, IMT-2030.SPECS will only cover the 6G RIT/SRIT (radio interfaces).  3GPP will do all the work on the 6G non-radio/systems aspects.

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The seven steps in the IMT-2030 standardization process is shown in this Figure:

References:

NGMN publishes ITU-R Framework for IMT-2030: Review and Future Direction

https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/study-groups/rsg5/rwp5d/imt-2030/Pages/default.aspx

Recommendation ITU-R M. 2160

Draft new ITU-R recommendation (not yet approved): M.[IMT.FRAMEWORK FOR 2030 AND BEYOND]

IEEE 5G/6G Innovation Testbed for developers, researchers and entrepreneurs

WRC-23 concludes with decisions on low-band/mid-band spectrum and 6G (?)

IMT-2030 Technical Performance Requirements (TPR) from ITU-R WP5D

6th Digital China Summit: China to expand its 5G network; 6G R&D via the IMT-2030 (6G) Promotion Group

IMT Vision – Framework and overall objectives of the future development of IMT for 2030 and beyond