The spectrum decisions shaping the 6G era

The GSMA’s Vision 2040 study [PDF] shows that without decisive action, many of the world’s cities will face capacity constraints as early as 2030. According to the analysis in the GSMA report, cities representing more than half of the world’s urban population will be capacity-constrained by 2030 if mid-band availability remains at today’s levels. Because mobile reliability, uplink capacity, and latency can influence productivity and customer experiences, now is the time to take stock and plan future strategy.

We look at the main findings in the report, and discuss the enterprise’s response.

Long-term spectrum planning underpins enterprise strategy

Planning for 6G requires a long lead time. As the report notes, device ecosystem readiness and equipment development can take a decade or more. Telecoms operators must make decisions about fibre backhaul, RAN upgrades, and site acquisition years before new services launch. Enterprises designing AI-driven products or mobility services, for example, depend to a large degree on this predictability.

The modelling used in the report suggests 6G will account for roughly 5 billion connections by 2040, about half of all mobile connections worldwide. However, 4G and 5G will still be used heavily, especially in emerging markets. Thus, spectrum re-farming will not be immediate. Operators will rely on multi-RAT spectrum sharing (MRSS) to run the intervening generations of mobile technology in parallel. MRSS offers improved efficiency compared with today’s dynamic spectrum sharing, but coexistence still adds complexity.

AI, sensing, and power users

Demand shifts to intelligence-driven workloads

Traffic will keep rising in every scenario the GSMA has modelled. Even the most conservative outcome involves expects 10% annual growth between 2030 and 2040, reaching 1,700 EB/month. In the high-growth scenario, this reaches 4,000 EB/month, driven largely by AI-enabled applications.

The report identifies four channels through which AI affects traffic

• new applications, including multimodal assistants
• higher performance requirements for existing experiences, such as personalised video
• increased time online
• some efficiencies from compression and optimisation

Enterprises adopting AI assistants, video or hybrid cloud-edge processing will contribute to this shift, especially as uplink demand becomes more significant.

Normalised heavy use

An important behavioural is that 10% of users now generate 60-70% of mobile traffic. As the digitally-native generation ages, these patterns will become mainstream. Enterprise mobility, frontline worker solutions, and customer engagement platforms should plan for higher uplink and downlink loads.

Concentration of demand

The geospatial findings are that 83% of traffic occurs in 5% of geographic areas, and dense-urban traffic per km2 can be nearly 700× higher than in rural areas. For enterprises that rely on specific zones (think logistics hubs, retail corridors, public venues), the performance of local RAN deployments will determine service reliability.

Mid-band spectrum as 6G’s anchor capability

The GSMA report says dense-urban areas will need 2-3 GHz of mid-band spectrum globally by 2035-2040, and 2.5-4 GHz in higher-demand markets. Many countries currently provide only around 1 GHz, meaning an additional 1-3 GHz is required.

The report states at least 2 GHz must be operational by 2030 or early 6G rollouts will face congestion.

Additional spectrum will enable:

• the wide channels required for sub-10 ms latency (for digital twins and real-time sensors)
• balanced uplink/downlink performance for real-time bi-directionality
• efficient reuse of existing bands through MRSS
• reduced reliance on mmWave (which can’t support wide-area traffic economically)

Operational constraints to manage

• Densification has limits: Most urban networks already operate within inter-site distances of 200-800m. Beyond this, costs rise quickly. Spectrum is more scalable.
• mmwave remains supplementary: suitable for localised capacity but will only carry 5-10% of dense-urban traffic, not replacing mid-band for wide-areas.
• Wi-fi offload is not a solution, but its un-managed nature means it can’t deliver predictable performance needed in the 6G-era.
• Spectrum re-farming will be gradual: With 4G and 5G still used widely in 2040, MRSS will be important in balancing the next generations of radio.

Recommendations for telecoms companies

1. Develop a long-term spectrum roadmap using the GSMA findings: 2-3 GHz globally, 2.5-4 GHz in high-demand markets.
2. Prioritise the upper 6 GHz band, as it offers around 700 MHz of new capacity between 6.425-7.125 GHz.
3. Build MRSS into network design. It’ll be needed to balance 4G, 5G, and 6G.
4. Model future uplink-heavy workloads. Plan for greater asymmetric demands on uplink.
5. Verticals such as manufacturing, transport, and retail will need guaranteed latency and reliability.
6. Evaluate densification options. Plan to use densification in targeted areas where it delivers the highest benefit, but not as a replacement for additional spectrum.

Conclusions

Spectrum policy may feel abstract, but its impact is concrete. The ability of a city or nation to deliver reliable 6G performance will influence economic growth, service innovation, and globally, digital inclusion. For telecoms operators and enterprise leaders, now is the time to align investments strategy with the spectrum decisions that will are defining next-gen connectivity.

(Image source: “CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope” by amandabhslater is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.)

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Tags: 6g, geopolitics, gsma, planning, policy, strategy