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6g mobile networks: key technologies, directions, and advances.

research paper on mobile telecommunications

1. Introduction

1.1. problem statement and motivation, 1.2. research methodology, 1.3. key contributions.

  • This survey covers the most recent advances & progress in the 6G age, as well as new benefits received by the experimental group and crucial elements of the 6G evolution.
  • The evolution of mobile network technology is the topic of this research. The growth of mobile communications and its many facets are also explored.
  • With a comprehensive classification, this study explores the emerging operational and research groups working on 6G and the many exploration domains in 6G wireless communication systems.
  • This analysis considers the benefits, features, key technologies, and fundamental concepts of a 6G network. The potential for network slicing and security in the 6G network is also investigated with an eye to future use cases. The 6G IoT-based approaches and optimisation techniques were also highlighted in the survey.
  • We provide a thorough overview and a summary of recent developments in the emerging technologies of the 6G cellular connection, including Wireless Communication Technology and Systems, which also covers Terahertz (THz), Next-Generation Antenna and RF Technology, Channel Coding and Modulation Technique, Spectrum Sharing, Internet-of-Things, and Blockchain Technology. By stressing the surroundings of current techniques and accompanying obstacles, a specialised overview is also circulated.
  • The improvements in softwarization, agile control, and deterministic services over the 6G armature are explored, and an architectural perspective for Network Slicing for the 6G network is presented.
  • In this study, we examine the potential difficulties and opportunities presented by Network Security throughout the development of 6G technology. This survey also includes discussions on security considerations, focusing on data processing, threat detection, network monitoring, and data encryption.

1.4. Outline of the Survey

2. comparison with existing survey articles and roadmap.

Authors & ReferencesNetwork SecurityNetwork SlicingWireless Communication Technology and SystemNext-Generation Antenna and RF TechnologyChannel Coding and ModulationTechniqueSpectrum SharingIoT & Blockchain Technology
Soon Xin Ng et al. [ ]----Yes--
Marco Giordani et al. [ ]--YesYes---
Sudeep Bhattarai et al. [ ]-----Yes-
RAMESH SEKARAN et al. [ ]------Yes
MostafaZaman Chowdhury et al. [ ]-YesYesYes--Partially (only For Blockchain)
Walid Saad et al. [ ]--YesYes---
Haitham Hassan H. Mahmoud et al. [ ]-YesYesYes---
Samar Elmeadawy et al. [ ]Yes-Yes---Yes
Ashish Kr. Gupta et al. [ ]--Yes----
Yang Lu et al. [ ]--YesYesYesYesYes
Anutusha Dogra et al. [ ]-YesYes--YesPartially (only For IoT)
Wen Wu et al. [ ]-Yes-----
Hao Xu et al. [ ]YesYesYes--YesYes
Rodrigo Moreira et al. [ ]-Yes----Partially (only For Blockchain)
Slawomir Kuklinski et al. [ ]-Yes-----
Maansa Krovvidi [ ]-YesYes---Partially (only For IoT)
Our paperYesYesYesYesYesYesYes

3. 6G Market Overview and Current Status

  • Massive URLLC: The acronym URLLC stands for communications with increased availability, reduced delay, and reliability for critical applications like the industrial internet of things and remote surgery. Massive-URLLC is a new service class that combines traditional mMTC with 5G-URLLC. It will come about because 6G will need to make the 5G URLLC service huge. One of the applications for huge URLLC that some want to deploy is autonomous intelligent driving (AID). AID necessitates juggling many priorities at once, including obstacle detection, automatic driving, motion planning, and others. Interesting alternatives to Massive-URLLC include multiple access techniques like OMA, NOMA, and assertion of multiple access. By using OMA techniques like massive-URLLC, the amount of bandwidth required for 6G might grow exponentially as more devices are added. Other multiple access techniques, such as NOMA, can be used to strike the ideal balance between scalability, reliability, and latency. Massive-URLLC demands the delivery of a lot of little data packets for “time-critical” 6G applications to ensure high resource efficiency and low latency [ 20 ].
  • eMBB: Applications like holographic meetings, AR, and VR often require fast transmission speeds, minimal latency, and great reliability. Additionally, these demands must be met in situations demanding a great deal of mobility, including sea and air travel. As a result, the following new service class for 6G has proposed an enhanced mobile broadband URLLC. For this service class, the importance of energy-efficiency is a priority. In comparison to the URLLC along with eMBB in 5G networks, this new network class should be extremely skilled in improving mobile communications networks, with regard to handover, interference, and huge data transmission and processing. Additionally, the improved mobile broadband URLLC communication service’s security and privacy issues need to be considered [ 20 ].
  • Massive eMBB—The link frequency will be quite high in Industry 4.0-based scenarios in order to acquire tactile perceptions and convert them into digital data. As a result, big eMBB will be a hot topic in the 6G network as a way to improve large-scale IIoT operations and functionalities by enabling the vast connection between worker, sensor, and an actuator that has low-latency [ 20 ].
  • Frequency Bands—For fixed access, 5G provides millimeter wave and sub-5GHz frequency bands. While 6G enables sub-6 GHz frequency bands, millimeter waves for mobile communication investigation of THz bands, non-RF bands, etc.
  • Data Rate—20 Gbps downlink and 10 Gbps uplink data rates are provided by 5G. On the other hand, 6G offers 1 Tbps for both the uplink and the downlink.
  • Latency—5G offers a latency of around 1 ms, whereas 6G aims to achieve a latency of less than 1 µs.
  • Architectural Style—The 5G architecture uses Mmwave tiny cells with a range of roughly 100 metres and dense sub-6 GHz smaller BSs with umbrella macro BSs. While 6G design comprises cell-free smart surfaces operating at higher frequencies, transient hotspots generated by BSs placed on drones, and tests with miniature THz cells.
  • Device Type—5G comprises devices like Smartphones, Sensors and Drones. 6G consists of gadgets including smart implants, CRAS, XR, and BCI technology, as well as DLT gadgets.
  • Reliability—5G has a reliability of 10–5 and 6G has 10 to 9.
  • Accuracy in localization—For 5G networks, 10 cm on 2D, and 1 cm on 3D for 6G based networks.
  • Customer engagement—50 Mbps 2D anywhere for 5G and for 6G network it is 10 Gbps 3D everywhere.

3.1. Developmental Progression from 1G to 6G

3.2. research groups working on 6g.

  • NTT Docomo: NTT Docomo released a journal paper in January 2020, following the distribution of its first white paper discussed above in September 2019. An intriguing viewpoint presented in this study for new remote transmission advancements that could be used in 6G proposes that faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) flagging, which folds up and sends signals non-symmetrically using an evaluation rate faster than that of the recurrence data transfer capacity in the space-time, would be used in place of OFDM approaches. Additionally, it recommends employing virtual massive MIMO technology to fulfil the specifications for receiving wire gains [ 24 ].
  • Rohde and Schwarz: Rohde and Schwarz create, deliver, and market a large number of electronic capital products for industry, foundation administrators, and government clients. All the free gathering is among the innovation and market pioneers in its business fields, including remote correspondences and RF test and estimation, broadcast and media, airport regulation and military radiocommunications, online protection, and organization technology. Around March 2020, Rohde and Schwarz distributed a study. The ideas and details mentioned in the article are very comparable with NTT Docomo’s article [ 25 ].
  • The Finnish 6G Flagship: 6G Flagship is the world’s most memorable 6G exploration program. We are a piece of the Finnish government’s public exploration lead program from 2018 to 2026. We want to make the fundamental 6G mechanical parts, the instruments, and the hardware to construct a 6G Test Network, foster picked vertical applications for 6G to speed up cultural digitization, and keep on being a perceived vision pioneer and pursue research accomplice in overall 6G exploration. In June 2020, they delivered eleven further 6G White papers, resulting in a total of documents from Flagship to twelve. Later, in July 2020, Samsung’s white paper was released as one of the most recent upgrades [ 26 ].
  • A clearer explanation of the Novel Antenna Technologies needed for THz parallelism is provided. Here two specialized advancements have indeed been explored: - RF-front ends and antennas based on metamaterials: A metamaterial is frequently built by assembling a multitude of movable components in various ways on scales smaller than the frequencies. Despite the fact that research on terahertz communication has been done in this area since 2002, 2012, and 2015, Samsung’s work specifically looks at 3 different ways to use metamaterials. The employment of a meta-area focal point to refine a shaft form may be advantageous. The operation of a receiving wire for metadata is comparable to that of a radio wire used only for sending commands. Modifiable smart surfaces could be used for a proliferating path in cases when there is no LoS connectivity. - Orbital Angular Momentum: OAM enables high-request spatial multiplexing in environments where it would have been impossible to do so using conventional MIMO advances, such as LOS channels. In whatever instance, it seems like its realistic implementation ain’t perfectly possible.
  • Range Sharing: An effect of area utilisation was examined in such a trial of distinctive range sharing. The study suggests using AI to foresee use from various aspects and so help minimise accidents with minimum overhead. By using split computing, devices may delegate complex computation tasks to other computing resources available within the company.
  • Bharti Airtel & Vodafone India: An ambitious start into nearby 6G enhancement will result in licensed innovation (IP) creation for the Indian telecom biological system, according to 0.79% and Vodafone Idea NSE 2.60%. They stated that the Indian telecom sector and the academic community needed to work together with the telecom office and contribute to the 6G standard structure in accordance with international regulations. They stated that it was necessary for the Indian telecom sector and the academic community to collaborate with the telecom office and contribute to the 6G standard framework in accordance with global standards endorsed by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).
  • Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.: The most advanced mobile communications system available now is 6G, but it will do much more than just support exchanges. The introduction of 6G will truly usher in a time when everything will be sensed, connected, and clever. 6G will function as a circulated brain network that provides correspondence links to join the physical, digital, and natural universes. This will provide the eventual concept of Intelligence of Everything with a solid foundation to build upon. According to this CNET article, the Chinese corporation is reportedly looking into 6G at its research and development facility in Ottawa, Canada [ 27 ].
  • LG Corp.: The 6G innovation would be displayed during LG’s participation in the 2021 Korea Science and Technology Exhibition from 22–24 December 2021, according to the tech titan from South Korea. During the Exhibition being held at Kintex, Ilsan, the organisation will highlight its efforts in 6G remote transmission and gathering. Interestingly, LG will announce a powered speaker for 6G in partnership with the German Fraunhofer Research Institute. In August 2021, LG aggressively tested the 6G power speaker in Berlin. Using the 6G recurrent frequency, the company had the possibility to efficiently communicate and obtain remote information within a 100-meter direct distance outside. The race for the business sending of 6G innovation is on and LG is focusing on 2029 for the commercialization of its 6G innovation. We’ll see whether LG will be pipped to the diadem by different organizations. LG, a regional rival of Samsung, launched a 6G testing facility in January 2019 in collaboration with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) [ 28 ].
  • ZTE Corp.: Incorporating RIS, one of the core innovations of 5G-Advanced and 6G, into the 5G organisation, and understanding the co-location and co-inclusion of mmWave and Sub-6GHz in densely populated metropolitan areas, the organisation begins to take the lead in this area. This effectively lowers the cost of the arrangement, shortens the sending time, uses less network energy, and aids in the growth of green, low-carbon, and high-efficiency businesses. The RIS system from ZTE is the result of cross-disciplinary collaboration between electromagnetic meta-materials and contemporary distant correspondence technology. It’s a cutting-edge innovation in the area of distant communication and has become one of the key advancements of 5G-Advanced and 6G. ZTE’s RIS arrangement has some control over the bar shape through the control data sent by the base station to achieve precise beamforming, unlike the diffuse reflection or specular impression of normal materials. As a result, it is able to comprehend programmable remote channels and transform the latent versatile remote channels of traditional distant correspondence innovation into versatile reconfigurable remote channels. On 17 May 2020, Chinese telecom equipment provider ZTE and big transporter Chinese Unicom came to an agreement to jointly explore 6G possibilities and innovation patterns as well as to look into crucial innovation and standard collaborations [ 26 ].
  • Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications: Beijing Post and Telecommunications made a significant leap forward, lauded by CCTV, and held onto track assets. Be that as it may, the improvement of Chinese innovation organizations in the 6G field is certainly not clear. In actuality, according to the advancement of Chinese innovation organizations in the 6G organization, the United States is probably going to lose 6G once more. To “go with the run”! In the field of 6G organizations, Huawei Ren Zhengfei said before that Huawei’s 6G organization innovation is done at the same time as 5G, which likewise shows that Huawei has for quite some time been sent in the 6G field, and Huawei has additionally sent off a satellite client’s 6G innovation innovative work. This likewise shows that Huawei has proactively begun to create in the 6G field. We found two licenses by the school, which are unequivocally associated with Beyond 5th Generation and 6G advancements. The licenses, which guarantee require the beginning of August 2019, are CN110392350A & CN110430550A [ 29 ].
  • College of Padova, Italy: This specific 6G White Paper is one of the twelve fresh, thematic 6G White Papers that the 6G Flagship initiative supports. It was funded by more than 50 professionals and supporters of impending 6G innovations. Here, it is anticipated that cutting-edge systems administration features will be explored in detail. These features will eventually influence the development of the 6G mobile network beyond the current 5G standard. Therefore, our focus is on the advancements and recommendations provided by the development of software and administration-based design. We also explore the major advancements that serve as the pillars for the advancement of 6G systems administration, taking into account the advancement of a cloud-based local mobile communication system and the adoption of a new IP design that supports high-accuracy services. In this white paper, we investigate the different examinations that can be acquired from the various sections engaged with the conveyance of a specific correspondence administration. We additionally examine the utility of high-accuracy start-to-finish telemetry and cross-portion examination. In a report titled Towards 6G Networks: Use Cases and Technologies, published by the University of Padova, the college’s specialists identify the major difficulties, chances, and use cases of 6G advancements that they feel will define 6G firms [ 26 ].
  • College of Aveiro, Portugal: The necessity for 6G research is also made evident by such a test paper dated March 2019. The paper examines the major factors that are expected to propel the development of 6G. Additionally, it explores how applications for AI and machine learning can be effective in 6G technology. It introduces brand-new elements which are typical to find within the 6G range, including quantum correspondence and satellite coordination. Colleges are probably getting ignored or just not receiving much attention at a certain time, but they nevertheless seem to have played a pioneering role in setting the groundwork of 6G and selecting how that basis and development would be [ 30 ].

3.3. 6G Applications

  • Ultra smart cities: Potential scenarios in an ultra-smart city would call for data rates around 1 Tbps, 3D connectivity, localization within 1 cm, and the reliability of 99.99%, for example, for autonomous vehicles, e-health, or smart industries. The measurements required for such apps in a smart city cannot be managed by 5G networks. Most 6G users will need mobility assistance between 240 and 1200 km/h. In order to coordinate while moving at high speeds, a self-driving car needs to interact with other vehicles and roadside sensors. In a different situation, drones would be needed to track the cars and act as information relays or hover ground stations for cross-communication. Extremely diminished-delay connectivity is among the essential criteria for autonomous cars and judgement, and under the aforementioned scenarios, 6G ought to be able to provide it [ 31 ].
  • Multi-dimension Materiality: Online games that incorporate user-machine interaction with extremely high-quality graphics data and use AR or VR technologies generate a lot of data. Soon, 3D games and other cross-media will combine VR and AR to create totally immersive gaming experiences that reproduce reality utilising all five senses. The remarkable capacity, reliability, and information rate we need to convey enhanced information across a wireless medium will be made available by 6G. To put it another way, we want a great customer experience, low latency, excellent reliability, and high information density [ 31 ].
  • Haptic communication: Imagine a healthcare system where an injured patient can only express their feelings verbally. In this case, a headband with intelligence may reconstruct brain signals and display them as a 3D video of a person’s vision, which a carer can view in real time using mobile networks. These haptic communication approaches will enable them to transmit information through touch. This situation is one of the planned applications of 6G technology, in which the network can support significantly higher data rates than 5G. Brain-controlled computer interfaces are another haptic network that is frequently used. In these networks, users use haptics to interact with their surroundings and control them using digital devices like a wireless chip installed in the brain that responds to emotions [ 31 ].
  • Healthcare and remote-surgeries: Critical applications can benefit from ultra-low latency of less than 1 millisecond in 5G networks. Remote surgeries, on the other hand, are exceedingly sensitive, requiring a latency of less than 1 ms. The introduction of 6G networks will revolutionise telemedicine and remote medical care since it will eliminate time and location constraints [ 32 ]. The 6G vision calls for a data throughput of 1 Tbps and data reliability of at least 99.99%. In contrast to past networking technologies, 6G must strive to meet simultaneously the lowest and highest latency requirements. This is necessary for remote surgery because certain data streams should be received at the destination within a given minimal delay and other data streams should arrive within a specified maximum delay [ 31 ].
  • Holographic communication: We will rapidly discover that the virtual world doesn’t really give us access to every aspect of reality as AR/VR apps develop. Telepresence has just exceeded in-person gatherings due to the current COVID-19 pandemic epidemic. For this project to remotely show an object or a person in actual, advanced virtual reality technology, bandwidth, and computations are required. To put it another way, a visual during a virtual conference might be a multi-dimensional, real-time projection that communicates the audio-visual impact of a person or thing. For a fully immersive VR experience, movies with 16 K resolution, 240 Hz scanning rate, and 3600 circular coverage must be delivered as a hologram. For example, in a social performance, a faraway musician may be introduced as a virtual presence to entertain those present. The same is true for remote and difficult-to-access regions such as mines and deep-ocean ports, where holographic communication might be employed for excavation and crew training. These transfers entail significant amounts of data, which 6G networks can handle [ 31 ].
  • Tactile internet: Several devices are expected to communicate with each other instantly and interactively over 6G networks, allowing for data transmission, control, and real-time touch feedback. The sensations of touch and taste are combined with voice, video, and other forms of communication in tactile internetworking. For instance, employing virtualized holographic representations to access subsea boats and containers, perform remote operations, and educate astronauts in space stations calls for just a feeling of contact to do maintenance & perform distant instruction with incredibly reduced delay. Additionally, as the food industry aims to digitise users’ food access experiences, a key focus will be on the conveyance of taste and smell to improve users’ experiences. The 6G network can satisfy the requirements because of its increased data capacity and low latency [ 31 ].
  • 6G for Healthcare-Internet-of-Things (HIoT): By utilizing its technological solutions, 6G connectivity will transform the Internet of Things. In reality, to accomplish virtually significant health service with a quick and accurate remote medical, healthcare areas like remote patient monitoring demand reduced delay communications with the consistency requirement of over 99% [ 33 ]. It’s worth noting that with such a milliseconds latency and high reliability, 6G-robotics may indeed be utilised to do remote operations, enabling doctors who are located elsewhere to direct the process using robotic tools. Specifically, agreements are being implemented that really can take power over the exchange of health information throughout the operation and automated verification for demands for health information [ 34 ].
  • 6G for Vehicular-Internet-of-Things (VIoT) and Autonomous-Driving (AD): The development of 6G technology has drastically altered vehicle IoT networks, which has revolutionised smart transportation systems. The study uses mMTCs in VIoT networks on 6G to enable V2X communication for the transmission of brief automotive data payloads by a large number of vehicles without the need for human interaction. In order to arrange available radio resources for V2X data connections within the specified frequency budget, signature features like time frames and hashing techniques are updated to reduce the likelihood of false positives. To fully utilise the potential of vehicle intelligence in VIoT, cutting-edge intelligence features with machine learning are integrated alongside the road components, which are responsible for evaluating traffic volume and weather forecasts relying on the accumulation of measurements from automobiles [ 34 ].
  • 6G for Unmanned-Aerial-Vehicles (UAVs): UAVs network enables 6G-based broad IoT with simply a focus on UAV aviation process optimization. To do this, the issue of maximising the effectiveness of sending data must be addressed, taking into account large-scale channel status, onboard energy, and interfering temperature limitations. The appeal of clustered IoT stations led to the creation of a station grouping technique based on intra-cluster NOMA communication, which allows UAVs to broadcast radio transmissions to IoT terminals [ 35 ]. A synergistically optimal outcome of UAV path prediction and subplot allocation is reached by splitting the down-link transfer of energy and up-link data transfer subplots. A three-dimensional non-stationarity geometrical probabilistic model based on AV elevation, spatial consistency, and three-dimensional random UAV motion routes is constructed in order to accomplish this, and it makes use of a variety of channel arrangements [ 34 ].
  • 6G for Satellite-Internet-of-Things (SIoT): It is essential to integrate satellite technology into current wireless connections if widespread IoT connectivity is to be achieved with 6G. Theoretically, satellites consist of three main network levels, namely LEO, MEO, and GEO, to provide global operations to terrestrial Internet of Things (IoT) customers. But in the 6G network, several satellites might be deployed in hundreds of orbits just above the earth, enabling LEO systems to truly achieve global reach and improved efficiency through frequency reuse. In addition, inter-satellite linkages will be constructed to enable interactions between satellites using THz bands, which have a much wider bandwidth than their mmWave and optical equivalents and can accommodate more satellites while attaining higher link stability. Every IoT device actually has to develop an asynchronous procedure by choosing one accessible preface from the offered preface collection for transmitting data in order to interact with the ground station through the uplink ports. In order to conduct yet another fractional time advance estimate and minimise extra signalling complexity and energy costs, an improved preface sequencing method is provided [ 34 ].
  • 6G for Industrial-Internet-of-Things (IIoT): The Industrial IoT area has recently looked at the functions of 6G. Given the scarcity of IIoT devices, sensors are frequently deployed at random, which adds needless energy expenditures. Big data, prediction based on neural training algorithms, and engagement during the learning phase with historical datasets are all effective methods for doing smart sensor grouping using Convolutions. Much improved resource management with less energy use and much less complexity is confirmed by simulation analysis. By considering block size, CPU and memory utilisation, and network latency, a unified fog cloud computing architecture is used to manage blockchain information analytics. The 6G-IIoT apps that may use information learning to explain their very complicated design and extraordinarily large data quantities should pay special attention to this. Additionally, using UAVs for space-to-terrestrial communication has the significant potential to increase smart farming by enabling aerial-based soil measuring using their sensor system across a wide area of coverage. So, in order to give a comprehensive picture of a farm for automated development of land output, UAVs may also be used to assist crop photography from a low height. While 6G offers the IIoT previously unheard-of advantages, privacy and security pose serious obstacles that must be overcome [ 36 ].

3.4. 6G Architecture

3.4.1. from terrestrial to ubiquitous 3d coverage.

  • Space-Network: High throughput satellite (HTS) devices are known to provide broadband Internet solutions with prices and capacity that are equivalent to terrestrial offerings. Geostationary orbit (GEO), where the majority of communications satellites are located, is at a height of 35,786 km, which inevitably causes significant latency and makes connectivity with terrestrial mobile networks impossible. A non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite system is proposed, and multiple satellite constellations are about to begin making a lot of money to provide low-latency, extremely high Internet connectivity. compared to a network of terrestrial optical fibres. Reduced latency connectivity may be available with an LEO system using co-routing radio-frequency and laser technologies.
  • Aerial-Network: High altitude platforms (HAP), which normally work the stratosphere, and low altitude platforms (LAP), which are usually at a height little and over a few kilometres, can be generally categorised as two types of aerial networks. HAP networks can provide more coverage and can last longer than LAP networks. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based LAP networks, on either hand, could be deployed faster, more easily modified to properly serve the communication system, and function great narrow communication. When facilities are severely damaged or absent altogether, such as in disaster emergency circumstances, UAV networks offer mobile communication. The suggested new trajectory optimisation & path guidance techniques considerably help save energy.
  • Undersea-Network: The three main categories of underwater wireless networks are radio frequency, acoustical, and optical communications. Due to the unexpected and complex undersea setting, which results in challenging network coverage, severe signal attenuation, and mechanical damage to the equipment. There are numerous issues to be solved.

3.4.2. Direction to Smart Network Connectivity

  • Real-time intelligent edge: The provision of engaging Intelligence applications will be necessary for the next-generation network, as well as a few services, notably autonomous cars, particularly susceptible to response delay and hence take real-time, intelligent interaction with their surroundings. These services cannot be provided by centralised cloud AI using static data; instead, the RTIE, which makes intelligent predictions, inferences, and decisions based on real-time information, is urgently needed.
  • Intelligent-radio: IR is a richer and larger idea that distinguishes computational techniques and hardware. It runs as a single-entity methodology for estimating hardware resources Transceiver methods are capable of dynamic configuration in accordance with the hardware data. From this viewpoint, IR can utilise the spectrum available. Thanks to the physical layer. IR also can modify transmission methods and signal strength.
  • Distributed-AI: The networking of the future would be a sizable decentralised framework where smart choices will be taken at many bitwise steps. Distributed AI uses shared resources in the system via a parallel procedure which necessitates separating the information and models in a suitable way to speed up understanding and increase inference consistency.

3.4.3. Novel Infrastructure

4. 6g technologies, 4.1. wireless-communication-technology and system, terahertz-communication.

  • Proposals for transmission channels for terahertz space & terrestrial communications that are comparable in terms of channel size, modeling, and algorithms.
  • THz Straight transmission, terahertz mongrel modulation, waveforms, multichannel coding, and terahertz broadcast modulation are a few examples of terahertz signal coding and modulation techniques.
  • Synchronous THz transmission, essential transmitter architecture, increased baseband, signal technology computation, and design of integrated circuits methodologies are some examples of the research and development that goes into Radio wave system and THz tower architecture [ 12 ].
  • Trials and error with the terahertz communication network and outfit developmental progress.
  • The air’s humidity readily absorbs the terahertz spike as it travels through it. Additionally, it is appropriate for wireless high-speed and close-range communication.
  • The beam is more focused, has greater directionality, and is more capable of interfering.
  • Wider bandwidth and an advanced frequency characterise terahertz swells. They are able to satisfy the need for dB of wireless broadband transmission. The potential diapason bandwidth is knockouts of GHz, and the terahertz surge diapason has a frequency between 108 and 1013 GHz. It is capable of communicating at speeds more than Tb/s.
  • The frequency of terahertz waves is a clear window in the atmosphere itself around bands of 350 µm, 450 µm, 620 µm, 735 µm, and 870 µm for communication in outer space. They are able to communicate across great distances with less power and reduced transmission rates.
  • The Terahertz wavelengths, which have a limited spectrum, can also be used for Massive MIMO with extra antenna rudiments.
  • Despite having a better energy efficiency than wireless optical communications, terahertz swells photon energy is very low—roughly 10 − 3 eV. There is just 1/40th of visible light. It has an exceptionally high energy efficiency while carrying information.
  • Robust penetration Matter may be accessed by terahertz waves with less attenuation. In certain unique instances, they’re appropriate for communication requirements [ 12 ].
  • The bit rate may be raised by using high frequency carriers like millimetre and terahertz waves.
  • Perfect connectivity between wired and wireless networks is made possible by the grounded signal generation and modulation techniques of photonics.
  • The wireless connection in the 300 GHz band using the direct discovery approach has attained 30 Gbit/s error-free. The 600 GHz band guarantees advanced.
  • Coherent discovery strategy has been investigated in order to boost bit rate and receiver perceptivity; a proof-of-conception experiment has been shown in the 100 GHz range.
  • The usage of RTDs in 300 GHz band, in addition to Si grounded Tx/Rx, has been shown. Electronics grounded technique is crucial for low cost and/or consumer operations.

4.2. Next-Generation Antenna and RF Technology

4.3. channel coding for the next generation, 4.4. spectrum-sharing, 4.5. iot and blockchain technology, 5. role of network slicing in 6g technology, 5.1. 6g-lego framework for 6g network slices, 5.2. efficient multi-tenancy framework for 6g network slicing, 5.3. multiple autonomous systems’ network slicing in 6g through nasor, 5.4. artificial intelligence in 6g network slicing.

  • Deep Learning: Network slicing and deep reinforcement learning are essential 6G network technologies. Multiple network slices from various tenants may be present in a 6G network. To enable intelligent and effective resource management, network providers must provide slices that fulfil the 6G use cases and quality of service and experience standards. Intelligent and efficient resource management necessitates anticipating tenant demand for services and achieving autonomous slice behavior. DRL allows for the analysis of techniques based on the optimization objective, network emphasis (core, edge, and end-to-end networks, for example), state space, action space, algorithms, and network architecture [ 58 ].
  • Supervised learning: A labelled data set is used to train supervised learning algorithms. The system is aware of both the desired output data and the input data needed to make a supervised prediction. To be effective in any application, supervised learning requires a sufficient amount of data [ 60 ].
  • Unsupervised learning: Unsupervised-learning algorithms must correctly anticipate the output from a set of unlabeled inputs, which is the main difference between supervised and unsupervised learning algorithms. These methods are most commonly employed for grouping and aggregation problems, but they can also be utilised to solve regression problems with excellent results [ 60 ].
  • Reinforcement Learning: A performance indicator obtained from the model’s environment is used to accomplish RL. The model maximises the reward indication in an effort to produce the best performance level. Combining supervised and unsupervised learning techniques is what is known as RL [ 60 ].

5.5. Internet of Things in 6G Network Slicing

5.6. optimization in 6g network slicing, 5.7. performance metrics for 6g network slicing, 5.7.1. resource allocation, 5.7.2. load balancing, 5.7.3. slice failure management, 5.8. network slicing recent advances, 6. implementation of security in 6g network, 6.1. security challenges associated with 6g network.

  • Poisonous attacks: false regression results and misclassification due to the modification of training data using malicious samples that have been purposefully created (e.g., inadequate flagging or alteration of annotated data).
  • Evasion attacks: by adding problems to the test cases, one might try to go past the learned model during the testing stage.
  • ML API-based Attacks: Whenever a malicious party makes API requests and attacks a machine learning model to get predictions on feature vector inputs, model inverting (recovering data for training), model extract (revealing architectures while jeopardising model confidentiality), & membership inferences (using the model output to make predictions based upon training examples and ML models) could all be part of it.
  • Physical assaults upon infrastructure and communications disruption choices and data management are hampered by deliberate interruptions & deficiencies in communication and computing infrastructure, which may even bring down whole AI systems.
  • AI framework infringement: The majority of AI remedies make use of current AI/ML frameworks. The legitimacy of AI/ML functionalities is targeted by flaws in such artifacts or conventional attack vectors against its software, firmware, and hardware environment (particularly cloud-centric operations).
  • The potential for an eclipse attack: blockchain nodes might receive misleading information that might lead to the validation of bogus transactions whenever connections are interrupted or dispersed.
  • 51% Attack: Cyber attackers can dominate the blockchain if they corrupt open-source blockchain apps and get or control at least 51% of the mining power.
  • End-user vulnerabilities: People may overlook or lose their private keys, which might compromise their blockchain-stored resources (e.g., identity theft, malware, phishing attacks).
  • Software Vulnerability: The decentralised paradigm of several blockchains may be permanently damaged when such DLT initiatives attempt to deploy shakily specific responses on operational blockchains.
  • Quantum replication attack: making a perfect clone of a piece of data in a randomised quantum state without changing the data’s initial condition.
  • Quantum collisions attack: Whenever 2 distinct inputs to a hashing algorithm deliver alike outputs in a quantum context, this is known as a quantum collision attack.
  • Access control attacks For gaining entry to restricted resources or changing system settings, parties violate access rules, steal information, or kidnap users.
  • Eavesdropping attack: Despite being resistant to intercepting assaults, broadcasts with strong polarity in small ranges are nevertheless vulnerable to hostile nodes capturing the signals.
  • Data-tampering or jamming attacks: Unauthorized transmissions can go unnoticed in VLC or hybrid VLC-RF systems. The likelihood of an effective assault is increased via a finely focused transmitter, such as those created by optical beamforming methods [ 86 ].
  • Eavesdropping attack: Whenever node terminals are placed in public spaces, wide screens are present in the covering zones, & there are cooperative eavesdroppers, they become just as susceptible as RF.
  • Metasurface-in-the-Middle Attack: Experts claim that 6G would potentially be greatly secured over wireless technology having greater beamwidths since it uses highly directional antennas. The idea is that by tightly focusing communication between the receiver and transmitter, the possibility of an eavesdropper intercepting a channel is reduced. Scientists at Rice University reported a man-in-the-middle attack targeted at 6G frequencies to highlight genuine security issues in an effort to verify that 6G is secured while technologies are being explored [ 87 ]. A well constructed metasurface may be used by an attacker to capture communication at 6G frequency, according to the experts, who refer to their assault as a metasurface-in-the-middle attack (MSITM). Through creating a metasurface & positioning it exactly in the path of vision between transmitter and receiver, the attacker can divert some part of sensitive communication. The resultant programmable scattering radiation patterns may create a diffraction-based eavesdropping route for the enemy. This could cause a phasing mismatch at the surface interface [ 88 ].
  • Parameter attack: Injection assaults against cross-domain data services might result from improperly vetted parameters. Logic corruption, data manipulation, & data injection all happen. Data on the topology of the network is changed to introduce hostile nodes and fictitious linkages. Fake parameter injection that is ongoing might result in a denial-of-service assault that leaves data services unusable [ 89 ].
  • Identity attack: Using vulnerabilities in identification & authorisation procedures for gain Harvested API keys are utilized as credentials. Unprotected E2E domain orchestration services are taken advantage of to alter settings in such an effort to violate service level agreements as well as to launch new instances that consume a lot of network resources [ 90 ].
  • Man-in-the-middle attack: Through starting false failure occurrences & intercepting domain control messages, MITM assaults can redirect traffic through rogue endpoints [ 91 ].
  • DDoS attacks: For 6G, DDoS assaults are anticipated to be significantly severe. Numerous vulnerable Internet of Things (IoT) devices might send enormous amounts of harmful traffic toward intruders. Edge servers that are frequently accessed, though, have less effective DDoS mitigation features. DDoS assaults can potentially be harmful to end devices [ 92 ].
  • Deception attack: The 6G network’s transmitted data will be manipulated on purpose [ 93 ].
  • Data leakage: Obtaining data about unauthorised parties’ intentions to undermine system security goals such as privacy and confidentiality, etc. Additional assaults might start as a result of all this.
  • Improper configurations: Intent-based links, which are comparable to Zero-touch Ntworks & Service Management (ZSM) in that they may be open to data uncovering, may be used by 6G networks, opening them up to assaults including unwanted configurations & strange behavior. Unwanted setup of intent-based interfaces, like switching the security level from high to low or altering the linking of intent to action, might risk the security of the entire management architecture [ 94 ].

6.2. Remediation Steps to the Security Challenges

  • Distributed and Scalable AI/ML security: Self-X (self-configuration, self-monitoring, self-healing, and self-optimization) tasks would be carried out by autonomous networks in 6G with little to no user intervention. Distributed AI/ML approaches should impose quick controls & analytics on the enormous quantity of data obtained in 6G networks because the ubiquitous usage of AI/ML would be implemented in such a distributed and large-scale system across multiple use cases, including network management. Distributed AI/ML may be used for security at many stages of 6G cybersecurity defence & prevention. The benefits of autonomous operation, improved precision, and predictive capabilities for security analytics are where AI/ML-driven cybersecurity finds its usefulness.
  • Security for Quantum Communication: Quantum communication rules like quantum key distribution have the ability to be used in a variety of 6G scenarios, including those for ocean communication, satellite communication, terrestrial wireless networks, and THz communications systems. Quantum key distribution (QKD) uses quantum theory to create a private key and distribute it among two lawful parties, making it suitable for traditional key distribution systems. Quantum-safe encryption is expected to be implemented in the post-quantum period as a result of the development of quantum computing. The advent of quantum algorithms might enable the polynomial-time solution of the discrete logarithmic issue, the fundamental difficulty in existing asymmetric cryptography.
  • Physical Layer Security: At each level, the network has security methods that may be employed individually to build an additional defence or collectively throughout levels for applications with low resources. 6G will make use of physical-level security techniques to offer an adaptable extra layer of security in an environment of novel enabling technologies. Classifying the channel’s backscatter as a protective measure against this eavesdropping method can help certain eavesdroppers be found, but not everyone of them. Molecular communication (MC) is a potential technology for 6G in several healthcare systems since bionanomachines interact using chemical signals or molecules in an aqueous environment. While dealing with a number of privacy and safety concerns relating to the communication, authentication, and encryption processes, MC manages to provide security for extremely confidential material.
  • Solution to Parameter attack: Input validation, user authentication, access control, and rate restriction are ways to stop parameter assaults.
  • Identity security: Identity assaults may be avoided by implementing authenticating (Signed JWT tokens, OpenID connect), authorising (role-based access control, attribute-based access control, and access control lists), and both.
  • Prevention against Man-in-the-middle attack: Utilization of VPNs and safe secured communications (e.g., IPsec, SSLffLS & HIP).
  • Prevention against DDoS attacks: Throttling or rate-limiting the use of APIs, deploying API gateways and micro gateways, and using AI-based API security to conduct continuous monitoring can all help avoid assaults that direct distributed denial of service.
  • Resolution against Data leakage: The following methods can be used to prevent data exposure: authenticating the relationship among the intent producer and consumer, like signed JWT tokens and OpenID Connect; limiting access through access control measures like role-based access control and OAuth 2.0; and further utilising communication security through TCP/IP protocols (TLS 1.2).

7. Conclusions

Author contributions, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Click here to enlarge figure

AbbreviationsFull FormsAbbreviationsFull Forms
Third Generation Partnership Project Mobile network operator
Fifth Generation Wireless Network Metasurface-in-the-middle Attack
Sixth Generation Wireless Network Network And Slice Orchestrator
Artificial Intelligence Network function virtualization
Advanced Mobile Phone Service Non-orthogonal Multiple Access
Augmented Reality Network Slicing
Beam Division Multiple Access Operations, Administration and Maintenance
Core Network Optical Communication Channel
Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
Distributed ledger technology Orthogonal Multiple Access
Delta-Orthogonal Multiple Access Open Radio Access Network
Denial-of-Service Optical wireless communication
Deep Reinforcement Learning Public Key Infrastructure
Digital Rights Management Radio access network
Digital Sub-Carrier Multiplexing Quality of Service
Distributed Turbo Trellis Coded Modulation Radio Frequency
End to End Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces
Elliptic Curve Encryption Reinforcement Learning
Enhanced Mobile Broadband Resource Spread Multiple Access
Enhanced Machine Type Communication Real Time Difference
European Telecommunications Standards Institute Real-time intelligent edge
Enhanced Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications Software-Defined Networking
Filterbank Multicarrier Service-Level Agreement
Frequency Division Multiplex Access Time Division Multiple Access
Further Enhance Ultra-Mobile Broadband Terahertz
Free-space optical communication Transport Layer Security
Faster-than-Nyquist Test Pattern Generator
High-Altitude Platform Turbo Trellis enCiphered Modulation
Industrial Internet of things Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
Internet of Everything ultra-High Density Data services
Internet of Things ultra-High Energy Efficiency
Internet Protocol Security ultra-High Reliability and Sensing
Infrared radiation ultra-High Reliability and User experience
JSON Web Token ultra-High Security
Key Programmable Interface ultra High Sensing Low Latency Communications
Link Access Protocol ultra-High Sensing and Localization
Low-Density Parity-Check ultra-Low Latency Reliability and Secure
Light-Fidelity Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service
Local Multipoint Distribution Service Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication
Line of sight Vehicle to Everything
Long Term Evolution-Advance Visible light communication
Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Virtualized Network Functions
Man In The Middle Attack Virtual Reality
Machine Learning Wideband Code Division Multiple Access
Massive Machine Type Communication Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access
millimeter Wave Extended Reality
GenerationsAccess TechniquesSwitching TechniquesError Correction MechanismData RateFrequency BandBandwidthApplicationDescription
1GFDMACircuit SwitchingNA2.4 kbps800 MHz30 KHzVoiceLet us to have a conversation.
2GTDMA, CDMACircuit SwitchingNA10 kbps800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 1900 MHz200 kHzVoice and DataAllow us to send messages and travel with better data services.
3GCDMA, WCDMACircuit and Packet SwitchingTurbo Codes384 kbps to 5 Mbps800 MHz, 850 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 1900 MHz, 2100 MHz5 MHzVoice, Data, and Video CallingAllow us to experiment by surfing the internet and using mobile applications.
4GOFDMAPacket switchingTurbo Codes100 Mbps to 200 Mbps2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz initially15 MHzVoice, Data, Video Calling, HD Television, and Online Gaming.Allow us to use unified network topologies and IP protocols to communicate voice and data via fast broadband internet.
5GNOMAPacket SwitchingLDPC10 Gbps to 50 Gbps1.8 GHz, 2.6 GHz and 30–300 GHz5–100 MHzVoice, Data, Video Calling, Ultra HD video, Virtual Reality applicationsIoT and V2Xhave broadened the scope of broadband wireless services beyond mobile internet.
6GD-OMA, RSMAPacket SwitchingLDPC with improved encoder and decoder(TPG decoder)Up to 1 Tbps90 GHz-140 GHz, 110 GHz to 170 GHz, 140 GHz to 220 GHz, 170 GHz to 260 GHz, 220 GHz to 325 GHz, 325 GHz to 500 GHz, 500 GHz to 750 GHz, 750 GHz to 1100 GHz, up to 3000 GHz7–20 GHzVoice, Data, Video Calling, AI, optical wireless communication (OWC), 3D networking, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), and wireless power transferEnd-users will be ableto smoothly and rapidly access a variety of high-end servicesthrough 6G. End-users, on the other hand, will require devices with powerful batteries in order to access high-end services without delayor disruption. The goal of 6G is to double the battery life of gadgets.
AuthorsThroughputLatencyEnergy EfficiencySpectral EfficiencyTransmission RateCoverageCost
Yang Lu et al. [ ]***
MostafaZaman Chowdhury et al. [ ]***
MostafaZaman Chowdhury et al. [ ]*****X
Chen, Z. et al. [ ]*XX*X*
Kürner, T. [ ]*XX**XX
Song [ ]XXXXXX
Kürner, T. [ ]XXX*XXX
Fischer, G. [ ]XXXXXX
Razaq, A et al. [ ]XXXX**
Lassalle, R. et al. [ ]XXX*XX
Ng, S.X. et al. [ ]XXXXXX
Peha, J.M. [ ]XXX*XX
Bhattarai, S. et al. [ ]X*X*X*
Sekaran, R. et al. [ ]*XXX*
Kumari, A. et al. [ ]XXXX
AuthorsKey ContributionR1R2LBRASFMZ1Z2Z3SEC
[ ](AI)-native network slicing architectureXXXXX
[ ]Implementation of intelligent D2D in future 6G.XXX
[ ]Artificial Intelligence-based Network slicing framework for future 6G.XXX
[ ]Blockchain’s potential for resource management and sharing in 6G.XXXXX
[ ]Hybrid deep learning-enabled efficient congestion control technique.XXX
[ ]Mathematical model for the generic network slice design.XXXXXX
[ ]Resource management paradigm employing deep reinforcement learning.XXXX
[ ]6G Network Architecture based on virtualized network slicingXX
[ ]Self-managed and self-orchestrated slices sustained using 6G-LEGO.XXXX
[ ]Recursive network slicing between several Autonomous Systems using NASOR.XXXXXXX
[ ]Deep Reinforcement Learning for network slicing resource management.XXX
[ ]Smart 6G Networks with AI.XXXX
[ ]Algorithms for Machine Learning in 6G Wireless NetworksXXXX
[ ]A smart and open 6G network.XXXXX
[ ]For 6G, an intelligent self-sustaining RAN slicing framework has been developed.XXXX
[ ]6G Cognitive Load Balancing MethodologyXXXX
[ ]The report discusses potential 6G requirements and trends.XXXX
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

Share and Cite

Dangi, R.; Choudhary, G.; Dragoni, N.; Lalwani, P.; Khare, U.; Kundu, S. 6G Mobile Networks: Key Technologies, Directions, and Advances. Telecom 2023 , 4 , 836-876. https://doi.org/10.3390/telecom4040037

Dangi R, Choudhary G, Dragoni N, Lalwani P, Khare U, Kundu S. 6G Mobile Networks: Key Technologies, Directions, and Advances. Telecom . 2023; 4(4):836-876. https://doi.org/10.3390/telecom4040037

Dangi, Ramraj, Gaurav Choudhary, Nicola Dragoni, Praveen Lalwani, Utkarsh Khare, and Souradeep Kundu. 2023. "6G Mobile Networks: Key Technologies, Directions, and Advances" Telecom 4, no. 4: 836-876. https://doi.org/10.3390/telecom4040037

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Renewing U.S. Telecommunications Research (2006)

Chapter: 1 the importance of telecommunications and telecommunications research, 1 the importance of telecommunications and telecommunications research.

How important is telecommunications as an industry, and how important is telecommunications research to the overall health of that industry? Underlying these questions are several others. How important is telecommunications to the U.S. economy and society? To what extent are U.S. consumers likely to benefit directly from telecommunications research in terms of new products and services that enhance their lives or improve their effectiveness or productivity? How much scope for innovation is there left in telecommunications, or has telecommunications matured to the point that it is merely a commodity service or technology?

The core findings of this study—which are supported throughout this report—are that the telecommunications industry remains of crucial importance to the United States as a society, that a strong telecommunications research capability continues to be essential to the health and competitiveness of this U.S. industry internationally, and that the health of this industry strongly affects the U.S. economy in many ways.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS—AN EVOLVING DEFINITION

Before the emergence of the Internet and other data networks, telecommunications had a clear meaning: the telephone (and earlier the telegraph) was an application of technology that allowed people to communicate at a distance by voice (and earlier by encoded electronic signals), and telephone service was provided by the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Much of the U.S. network was owned and operated by American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T); the rest consisted of smaller independent companies, including some served by GTE.

Then in the 1960s, facsimile and data services were overlaid on the PSTN, adding the ability to communicate documents and data at a distance—applications still considered telecommunications because they enabled new kinds of communication at a distance that were also carried over the PSTN. More recently, of course, communication at a distance has ex-

panded to include data transport, video conferencing, e-mail, instant messaging, Web browsing, and various forms of distributed collaboration, enabled by transmission media that have also expanded (from traditional copper wires) to include microwave, terrestrial wireless, satellite, hybrid fiber/coaxial cable, and broadband fiber transport.

Today consumers think of telecommunications in terms of both products and services. Starting with the Carterphone decision by the Federal Communications Commission in 1968, 1 it has become permissible and increasingly common for consumers to buy telecommunications applications or equipment as products as well as services. For example, a customer-owned and customer-installed WiFi local area network may be the first access link supporting a voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service, and a consumer may purchase a VoIP software package and install it on his or her personally owned and operated personal computer that connects to the Internet via an Internet service provider.

The technologies used for telecommunications have changed greatly over the last 50 years. Empowered by research into semiconductors and digital electronics in the telecommunications industry, analog representations of voice, images, and video have been supplanted by digital representations. The biggest consequence has been that all types of media can be represented in the same basic form (i.e., as a stream of bits) and therefore handled uniformly within a common infrastructure (most commonly as Internet Protocol, or IP, data streams). Subsequently, circuit switching was supplemented by, and will likely ultimately be supplanted by, packet switching. For example, telephony is now routinely carried at various places in the network by the Internet (using VoIP) and cable networks. Just as the PSTN is within the scope of telecommunications, so also is an Internet or cable TV network carrying a direct substitute telephony application.

Perhaps the most fundamental change, both in terms of technology and its implications for industry structure, has occurred in the architecture of telecommunications networks. Architecture in this context refers to the functional description of the general structure of the system as a whole and how the different parts of the system relate to each other. Previously the PSTN, cable, and data networks coexisted as separately owned and operated networks carrying different types of communications, although they often shared a common technology base (such as point-to-point digital communications) and some facilities (e.g., high-speed digital pipes shared by different networks).

How are the new networks different? First, they are integrated, meaning that all media— be they voice, audio, video, or data—are increasingly communicated over a single common network. This integration offers economies of scope and scale in both capital expenditures and operational costs, and also allows different media to be mixed within common applications. As a result, both technology suppliers and service providers are increasingly in the business of providing telecommunications in all media simultaneously rather than specializing in a particular type such as voice, video, or data.

Second, the networks are built in layers, from the physical layer, which is concerned with the mechanical, electrical and optical, and functional and procedural means for managing network connections to the data, network, and transport layers, which are concerned with transferring data, routing data across networks between addresses, and ensuring end-to-end

See 13 F.C.C.2d 420 (1968).

connections and reliability of data transfer to the application layer, which is concerned with providing a particular functionality using the network and with the interface to the user. 2

Both technology (equipment and software) suppliers and service providers tend to specialize in one or two of these layers, each of which seeks to serve all applications and all media. As a consequence, creating a new application may require the participation and cooperation of a set of complementary layered capabilities. This structure results in a horizontal industry structure, quite distinct from the vertically integrated industry structure of the Bell System era.

All these changes suggest a new definition of telecommunications: Telecommunications is the suite of technologies, devices, equipment, facilities, networks, and applications that support communication at a distance .

The range of telecommunications applications is broad and includes telephony and video conferencing, facsimile, broadcast and interactive television, instant messaging, e-mail, distributed collaboration, a host of Web- and Internet-based communication, and data transmission. 3 Of course many if not most software applications communicate across the network in some fashion, even if it is for almost incidental purposes such as connecting to a license server or downloading updates. Deciding what is and is not telecommunications is always a judgment call. Applications of information technology range from those involving almost no communication at all (word processing) to simple voice communications (telephony in its purest and simplest form), with many gradations in between.

As supported by the horizontally homogeneous layered infrastructure, applications of various sorts increasingly incorporate telecommunications as only one capability among many. For example telephony, as it evolves into the Internet world, is beginning to offer a host of new data-based features and integrates other elements of collaboration (e.g., visual material or tools for collaborative authoring). Another important trend is machine-to-machine communication at a distance, and so it cannot be assumed that telecommunications applications exclusively involve people.

THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY

Like telecommunications itself, the telecommunications industry is broader than it was in the past. It encompasses multiple service providers, including telephone companies, cable system operators, Internet service providers, wireless carriers, and satellite operators. The industry today includes software-based applications with a communications emphasis and intermediate layers of software incorporated into end-to-end communication services. It also includes suppliers of telecommunications equipment and software products sold directly to consumers and also to service providers, as well as the telecommunications service providers

The descriptions of layers were adapted from the Open Systems Interconnect Reference Model (ISO 7498-1), which provides a useful tool for conceptualizing network layers—see < >.

The term “telecommunications” takes on a particular significance with respect to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and implementing regulations. The broad definition adopted here is intended solely to capture the scope of relevant research, not to make any statement about what technologies and services should or should not be considered telecommunications for regulatory purposes.

themselves. It includes companies selling components or intellectual property predominately of a communication flavor, including integrated circuit chip sets for cell phones and cable and digital subscriber line (DSL) modems.

No longer a vertically integrated business, the telecommunications industry is enabled by a complex value chain that includes vendors, service providers, and users. The telecommunications value chain begins with building blocks such as semiconductor chips and software. These components are, in turn, incorporated into equipment and facilities that are purchased by service providers and users. The service providers then, in turn, build networks in order to sell telecommunications services to end users. The end users include individuals subscribing to services like telephony (landline and cellular) and broadband Internet access, companies and organizations that contract for internal communications networks, and companies and organizations that operate their own networks. Some major end-user organizations also bypass service providers and buy, provision, and operate their own equipment and software, like a corporate local area network (LAN) or a U.S. military battlefield information system. Software suppliers participate at multiple points in the value chain, selling directly not only to equipment vendors but also to service providers (e.g., operational support systems) and to end users (e.g., various PC-based applications for communications using the Internet).

An implication of defining telecommunications broadly is that every layer involved in communication at a distance becomes, at least partially, part of the telecommunications industry. The broad range and large number of companies that contribute to the telecommunications industry are evident in the following list of examples:

Networking service providers across the Internet and the PSTN, wireless carriers, and cable operators. Examples include AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and DirecTV.

Communications equipment suppliers that are the primary suppliers to service providers. Examples include Cisco, Lucent, and Motorola.

Networking equipment suppliers selling products to end-user organizations and individuals. Examples include Cisco’s Linksys division and Hewlett-Packard (local area networking products).

Semiconductor manufacturers , especially those supplying system-on-a-chip solutions for the telecommunications industry. Examples include Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Broadcom, and STMicroelectronics.

Suppliers of operating systems that include a networking stack. Microsoft is an example.

Software suppliers , especially those selling infrastructure and applications incorporating or based on real-time media. Examples include IBM, RealNetworks (streaming media), and BEA (application servers).

Utility or on-demand service providers selling real-time communications-oriented applications. Examples include AOL and Microsoft (instant messaging) and WebEx (online meetings).

Consumer electronics suppliers with communications-oriented customer-premises equipment and handheld appliances. Examples include Motorola and Nokia (cell phones), Research in Motion (handheld e-mail appliances), Polycom (videoconferencing terminals), Microsoft and Sony (networked video games), and Panasonic (televisions).

What is striking about this list is how broad and inclusive it is. Even though many of these firms do not specialize solely in telecommunications, it is now quite common for firms in the

larger domain of information technology to offer telecommunications products or to incorporate telecommunications capability into an increasing share of their products.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Telecommunications and society.

The societal importance of telecommunications is well accepted and broadly understood, reflected in its near-ubiquitous penetration and use. Noted below are some of the key areas of impact:

Telecommunications provides a technological foundation for societal communications . Communication plays a central role in the fundamental operations of a society—from business to government to families. In fact, communication among people is the essence of what distinguishes an organization, community, or society from a collection of individuals. Communication—from Web browsing to cell phone calling to instant messaging—has become increasingly integrated into how we work, play, and live.

Telecommunications enables participation and development . Telecommunications plays an increasingly vital role in enabling the participation and development of people in communities and nations disadvantaged by geography, whether in rural areas in the United States or in developing nations in the global society and economy.

Telecommunications provides vital infrastructure for national security . From natural disaster recovery, to homeland security, to communication of vital intelligence, to continued military superiority, telecommunications plays a pivotal role. When the issue is countering an adversary, it is essential not only to preserve telecommunications capability, but also to have a superior capability. There are potential risks associated with a reliance on overseas sources for innovation, technologies, applications, and services.

It is difficult to predict the future impact of telecommunications technologies, services, and applications that have not yet been invented. For example, in the early days of research and development into the Internet in the late 1960s, who could have foreseen the full impact of the Internet’s widespread use today?

Telecommunications and the U.S. Economy

The telecommunications industry is a major direct contributor to U.S. economic activity. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that just over 3 percent of the U.S. gross domestic income (GDI) in 2003 was from communications services (2.6 percent) and communications hardware (0.4 percent)—categories that are narrower than the broad definition of telecommunications offered above. At 3 percent, telecommunications thus represented more than a third of the total fraction of GDI spent on information technology (IT; 7.9 percent of GDI) in 2003. In fact, the fraction attributable to telecommunications is probably larger relative to that of IT than these figures suggest, given that much of the GDI from IT hardware (particularly semiconductors) could apply to any of several industries (computing, telecommunications, media, and electronics, for example). If one assumes IT to be the sum of computers (calculating), computers (wholesale), computers (retail), and software and services, the total GDI for IT is

$440 billion, compared to the total for telecommunications (communications hardware plus communications services) of $335 billion, making telecommunications’ contribution to GDI just under 80 percent of IT’s contribution to GDI. 4

The telecommunications-related industries are also a major employer—communications services employed 1 million U.S. workers in 2002, representing 1.1 percent of the total private workforce, and communications equipment companies employed nearly 250,000 people. 5 Moreover, telecommunications is a high-tech sector, with many highly skilled employees.

Telecommunications is a growth business. Although markedly reduced investment in some parts of the sector (following the bubble years of the late 1990s) may have given an impression of low growth in the long run, a longer-term view taking into account the need for humans and machines to communicate suggests that telecommunications will continue to grow apace, as evidenced by the ongoing expansion of wireless and broadband access services throughout the world.

Telecommunications is also a key enabler of productivity across the U.S. economy and society. 6 Not only is telecommunications an industry in itself, but it also benefits nearly every other industry. In the 1990s the U.S. GDP grew rapidly, and the U.S. economy was among the strongest in the world. It is widely believed that the Internet economy played a significant role in this success.

Today, however, new wireless applications, low-cost manufacturing innovations, and handset design are some of the areas in which the Asian countries are outinvesting the United States in R&D and are seeing resulting bottom-line impacts to their economies. For the United States to compete in the global marketplace—across industries—it needs the productivity that comes from enhancements in telecommunications. If the telecommunications infrastructure in the United States were to fall significantly behind that of the rest of the world, the global competitiveness of all other U.S. industries would be affected. Conversely, the growth in U.S. productivity has been based in part on a telecommunications infrastructure that is the most advanced in the world.

U.S. leadership in telecommunications did not come by accident—success at the physical, network, and applications levels was made possible by the U.S. investment in decades of research and the concomitant development of U.S. research leadership in communications-related areas. Telecommunications has been and likely will continue to be an important foundation for innovative new industries arising in the United States that use telecommunications as a primary technological enabler and foundation. Recent examples of innovative new businesses leveraging telecommunications include Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay, and Google. Telecom-

GDI estimates for 2003 from U.S. Census Bureau, (124th Edition), Washington, D.C., Table 1116, p. 715, 2004, available online at < >.

Data for 2002 from U.S. Census Bureau, (124th Edition), Washington, D.C., Table 1117, p. 715, 2004, available online at < >.

For more on the relationship between information and communications technologies and economic productivity, see, for example, Dale W. Jorgenson and Kevin J. Stiroh, “Raising the Speed Limit: U.S. Economic Growth in the Information Age,” , pp. 125-235, 2000; and Erik Brynjolfsson and Lorin M. Hitt, “Beyond Computation: Information Technology, Organizational Transformation and Business Performance,” , 14(4):45, Fall 2000.

munications is also specifically a key enabler for other industries in which the United States has important competitive advantages and a positive balance of trade, such as financial services and entertainment (e.g., movies and music).

Finally, telecommunications is an important component of the broader IT industry, which is sometimes viewed as having three technology legs: 7 processing (to transform or change information), storage (to allow communication of information from one time to another), and communications (to transmit information from one place to another). The boundaries between these areas are not very distinct, but this decomposition helps illustrate the breadth of IT and the role that telecommunications plays. Increasingly IT systems must incorporate all three elements to different degrees, 8 and it is increasingly common for companies in any sector of IT to offer products with a communications component, and often with a communications emphasis. The IT industry’s overall strength depends on strength across communications, processing, and storage as well as strength in all layers of technology—from the physical layer (including communications hardware, microprocessors, and magnetic and optical storage), to the software infrastructure layers (operating systems and Web services), to software applications.

Telecommunications and Global Competitiveness

In this era of globalization, many companies are multinational, with operations—including R&D—conducted across the globe. For example, IBM, HP, Qualcomm, and Microsoft all have research facilities in other countries, and many European and Asian companies have research laboratories in the United States. Increasing numbers of businesses compete globally. Every company and every industry must assess the segments and niches in which it operates to remain globally competitive.

Both Asian and European nations are continuing to pursue strategies that exploit perceived U.S. weakness in telecommunications and telecommunications research as a way of improving their competitiveness in telecommunications, as well as in information technology more broadly. Leapfrogging the United States in telecommunications has, in the opinion of the committee, been an explicit and stated strategy for a number of Asian (in broadband and wireless) and European (in wireless) nations for the past decade, with notable success. These efforts have aimed to stimulate the rapid penetration of physical-layer technologies for residential access (broadband access, especially in Asia) and wireless and mobile access (cellular networks, especially in Europe).

THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTINUING INVESTMENT IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH: SUMMARY COMMENTS

Telecommunications research is best understood as a seed that germinates, developing into lasting value for the U.S. economy. Figure 1.1 depicts the research ecosystem and the

D. Messerschmitt, “Convergence of Computing and Telecommunications: What Are the Implications Today?” 84(8):1167-1186, 1996.

Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council, , National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 2000.

research paper on mobile telecommunications

FIGURE 1.1 Impact of telecommunications research.

benefits it enables, many of which are built up recursively over time as a result of interactions among the various levels. The picture is, to be sure, simplified—the interactions between the different elements are more complex than can be reasonably characterized by the diagram— but Figure 1.1 does provide a realistic view of the impacts of research.

Shown at the top of Figure 1.1 is the research enabled by available funding. Level 1 shows the direct results : Researchers conduct exploratory studies, achieving technical breakthroughs and developing their expertise and their basic understanding of the areas studied. Talent is thus nurtured that will be expressed in the future in industry and academia. None of these results of research can be characterized as end benefits. Rather, the development of talent and the achievement of breakthroughs build a capability for later revolutionary advances.

At Level 2 the benefits of research begin to become evident. Researchers collaborate, and individual insights and results begin to fit together. The university talent generated in Level 1 develops competence—not simply low-level job skills that can be easily transported anywhere, but rather the next-generation expertise needed to ensure a skilled U.S. telecommunications workforce. The United States has access to this skilled workforce first and can thus benefit directly from the talent and knowledge base generated in Level 1 that are fundamental to continuing technological advances and being able to perform in the best future jobs.

Also at Level 2 comes the maturing of fundamental breakthroughs and their transition to usable, deployable technology for next-generation telecommunication systems and the development of roadmaps to help guide research investments.

The major benefits to the economy obtained at Level 3 are the coalescence of Level 1 and 2 elements. Skilled workers, a competence to understand the new technology, the availability of the technology, and shared goals are the ingredients required to create a healthy telecommunications industry and, more broadly, a capable telecommunications infrastructure.

Interestingly, not all of the research performed affects telecommunications alone. Because telecommunications touches multiple industries, the technology base it provides also often enables the creation of entirely new industries. The success of the iPod and other portable digital music players, for example, rests in part on earlier telecommunications-inspired work on how to compress audio for efficient transmission over limited-bandwidth channels.

At Level 4, an indirect benefit of research is a telecommunications infrastructure that provides advantages to all industries that use telecommunications. There are also end-user or consumer benefits that accrue to having an outstanding infrastructure, such as enhanced education, entertainment, and personal convenience. Finally, new companies also emerge from these new industries.

Level 5 aggregates the key benefits of research in broad areas of national concern. Concerning economic impact, the strong telecommunications industry, new spin-off industries, and more competitive industries (across the board) result in a higher GDP for the country, as well as job creation. Technological leadership and economic strength also help ensure strong leadership and capability in national defense and homeland security.

The full benefits of the process depicted in Figure 1.1 develop over an extended period of time, with a long-term buildup over several years between the seed investments in research and realization of the ultimate bottom-line benefits. Each step takes time: from innovation to mass deployment and impact. Investments by both government and industry in research by academia and industry lead to both short- and long-term contributions.

Over the years, CSTB studies have documented this phenomenon across multiple areas of information technology and telecommunications research. In particular, its 1995 report Evolving the High Performance Computing and Communications Initiative to Support the Nation’s Information Infrastructure 9 and a 2003 update 10 illustrate how long-term investments in research across academia and industry have led to the creation of many new, important U.S. industry segments with revenues that came to exceed $1 billion.

In closing, it is worth noting the perils of losing leadership in telecommunications. Because of the time lag, the nation may continue to exhibit leadership at Levels 4 and 5 (and possibly Level 3) even as it is failing to renew capability at Levels 1 and 2. Since Levels 3 through 5 are most visible to policy makers and the public, there is a potential to perceive the situation as less dire than it really is. If Levels 1 and 2 are left to atrophy, serious problems will occur at Levels 3 through 5. If that happens, then recovery will take a long time—or even prove impossible.

Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council, , National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1995.

Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council, , The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2003.

The modern telecommunications infrastructure—made possible by research performed over the last several decades—is an essential element of the U.S. economy. The U.S. position as a leader in telecommunications technology, however, is at risk because of the recent decline in domestic support of long-term, fundamental telecommunications research. To help understand this challenge, the National Science Foundation asked the NRC to assess the state of telecommunications research in the United States and recommend ways to halt the research decline. This report provides an examination of telecommunications research support levels, focus, and time horizon in industry, an assessment of university telecommunications research, and the implications of these findings on the health of the sector. Finally, it presents recommendations for enhancing U.S. telecommunications' research efforts.

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research paper on mobile telecommunications

A comprehensive evaluation of software-defined radio performance in virtualized environments for radio access networks

  • Published: 26 June 2024

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research paper on mobile telecommunications

  • Govinda M. G. Bezerra 1 ,
  • Nicollas R. de Oliveira 1 ,
  • Tadeu N. Ferreira 2 &
  • Diogo M. F. Mattos 1  

Fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks offer flexibility to address various emerging use cases. Radio virtualization enhances flexibility by enabling multiple heterogeneous virtual radios to coexist on the same hardware. One method for virtualizing radio devices involves using virtual machines and containers to multiplex software radio implementations over generic multipurpose radio hardware. This paper reviews security issues in this context, evaluates the experimental bounds of communication for software-defined radio (SDR) devices, and assesses virtualization’s impact on radio virtualization’s performance. This study aims to determine the suitability of virtual environments for SDR applications. The results indicate that container-based radio virtualization performance is comparable to SDR applications running on native Linux.

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This work was supported in part by CNPq (17354/2021-3), CAPES, RNP, FAPERJ (E26/201.420/2021), FAPESP and Niterói City Hall/FEC/UFF (Edital PDPA 2020).

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Conceptualization: G.M.G.B., T.N.F. and D.M.F.M. Methodology: T.N.F. and D.M.F.M. Validation: N.R.O. Investigation: G.M.G.B., T.N.F. and D.M.F.M. Resources: D.M.F.M. Writing—original draft preparation: G.M.G.B., N.R.O. and D.M.F.M. Writing—review and editing: N.R.O. and D.M.F.M. Visualization: N.R.O. Supervision: T.N.F. and D.M.F.M. Project administration: D.M.F.M. Funding acquisition: D.M.F.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Bezerra, G.M.G., de Oliveira, N.R., Ferreira, T.N. et al. A comprehensive evaluation of software-defined radio performance in virtualized environments for radio access networks. Ann. Telecommun. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12243-024-01044-2

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A Comparative Study of Telecommunication Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction Between NTC and Ncell in Nepal

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2021, International Journal of Advanced Research

Nepal Telecommunication (NTC) and Ncell are the two main telecom players in Nepal at the moment. Ncell has been primarily focused on offering Global System for Mobile (GSM) mobile lines, while NTC offers all types of phone services. Although NTC remains the countrys leading provider of total subscribers, Ncell recently overtook NTC as the countrys leading provider of GSM mobile lines. This study aims to assess customer satisfaction in two highly competitive Nepalese telecom industries and make a comparison based on service quality. Descriptive and inferential tools are used to draw the comparative analysis. The research identifies the security service quality dimension as the major dimension of both telecommunication networks. It also locates reliability service quality of the NTC network is highly correlated with customer satisfaction whereas the security of the Ncell network is highly correlated with customer satisfaction. Tangibles are a high effect on customer satisfaction of NT...

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Taposh Neogy

Dr. Md. Hasebur Rahman

Identification of factors responsible for customer satisfaction is a key concern of marketing scholars and marketers in now a days and it will remain in the future. There is considerable evidence that quality factors affecting customer satisfaction in numerous ways. However, this empirical study is initiated to find out what particular factors responsible for customer satisfaction in the mobile telecommunication industry in Bangladesh. 282 samples have been collected through structured questionnaire; study reveals that service innovativeness, service reliability, service competitiveness and service consistency have significant influence on making customer satisfied and the operator’s network/signal coverage, pricing, offering, fulfillment of customer demand, value added service, brand value and operators contribution for society have insignificant influences on making customer satisfied at five percent level of significant at multiple regression analysis. On the basis of these findings; study concludes that in promoting customer satisfaction mobile service providers should be concerned for factors responsible for insignificant influence on customer satisfaction and care of those factors have significant influence on promoting customer satisfaction in telecommunication industry in Bangladesh. Today, telecommunication is an inseparable part of our everyday life. Besides tele-phone, now-a-days mobile phones are playing a great role to communicate from one place to another place. The phone is not only used for making calls, among many other functions, it is used for communicating through text-messages, multi-media messages, as well as to connect us to the internet. The opportunities that lie in the telecom market seem endless and the growing demand for mobile telephony systems is creating a world-wide market. Actors in this industry are seeking the most profitable markets throughout the world (Hossain, Suchy 2013). The mobile telecommunication is one of the fastest growing industrial sectors in Bangladesh. It is projected that Bangladesh will be the third biggest telecom market in Asia after China and India (Uddin, Akhter 2012). The competition in this sector has become very intense and the companies’ need for survival, in these very difficult conditions that dominate in this sector, forces them to search for ways to attract and retain customers (Vranakis et al. 2012). The increases in the number of subscribers on the various operators in Bangladesh have brought with it the challenges of customer satisfaction. Though the industry is relatively new yet the growth is much faster in comparison to other industries due to aggressive market oriented business strategy. The mobile telecommunication industry of Bangladesh is going towards high market penetration rate. Many foreign investors are now interested to do business in telecom sector in Bangladesh which reveals that Bangladesh has become a significant hub for telecoms. Bangladesh has currently six mobile phone operators in Mobile Telecommunication Industry (BTRC 2014). This industry has reached maturity stage in telecommunication business in 2G network services. Mobile telecommunication industry of Bangladesh has rapidly expanded in recent years. The total number of Mobile Phone subscribers has reached 111.797 million at the end of October 2013 (BTRC 2014). Table 1. Market Share Operators Active Subscribers Percentage Grameen Phone Ltd. (GP) 46.663 41.74 Banglalink Digital Communications Limited 28.387 25.39 Robi Axiata Limited (Robi) 24.835 22.22 Airtel Bangladesh Limited (Airtel) 8.229 7.36 Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Limited (Citycell) 1.344 1.20 Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd. (Teletalk) 2.340 2.09 Total 111.797 100.00 Source: BTRC, January 2014. Table 1 shows Grameenphone, the largest mobile operator in the country, reached 46.663 million at October 2013 at the rate of 41.74% market share, Banglalink ac-quired 28.387 million subscribers October 2013 at the rate of 25.39% market share, Robi captured 24.835 million subscribers October 2013 at the rate of 22.22% market share, Airtel captured 8.229 million subscribers October 2013 at the rate of 7.36% market share, Citycell maintained 1.344 million subscribers October 2013 at the rate of 1.20% market share and Teletalk captured 2.340 million subscribers October 2013 at the rate of 2.09% market share. The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) gave the ap-proval of the 3G service packages for the three private operators in conformity with that of the state-owned telecom operator, Teletalk. The operator bought spectrum of 2100 bands with the cost of US$ 21 million per megahertz (MHz) spectrum. Only GP bought 10 MHz spectrum while others bought 5MHz spectrum each for the 3G service (BTRC 2014). The new era is introducing, advancement in mobile telecommunication appeared. Mobile operators in Bangladesh currently provide voice call, voice message, SMS, MMS, internet service, international roaming and information services e.g., news, stock quotes, weather, etc. Operators are enthusiastic to promote quality of ser-vices for customer satisfaction at present and near the future. In spite of these outstanding and remarkable improvements in accessibility of mo-bile services in Bangladesh; there are higher rate of customer complaints on the high rate of tariff, interrupted voice signals, irresponsible to customer preference, poor cus-tomer service, connection errors, poor interconnect with other networks. There is therefore the operators need to evaluate the determinants of customer satisfaction in the mobile telecommunication industry in Bangladesh. The customer remains the key concern of marketer and marketing manager now a days and it will remain the future; because customer performs a key role in business, without customer business is impossible. It is customer for which business is created. There are considerable evidences that higher customer satisfaction leads to higher profitability in business. In today’s competitive business; marketing manager concern for attracting, developing and maintaining customers through quality of customer services that of the competitors do. Therefore, this study is initiated to investigate respondents demographic, to investi-gate user’s value added service interface, to identify the factors (service innovative-ness, service reliability, service competitiveness, service consistency, the operator’s network/signal coverage, pricing, offering, fulfillment of customer demand, value added service, brand value and operators contribution for society) responsible for cus-tomer satisfaction in mobile telecommunication industry in Bangladesh and finally provides some policy implications on the basis of findings of the study. Creating satisfied and loyal customers is a key concern of marketers and marking managers in now a days and it will remain in the future. It is well accepted that customer satisfaction is both a goal and a marketing tool for customer-centered companies (Kotler, Keller 2012). Customers’ satisfaction with their purchase is a significant factor that leads business to success. In recent times, customer satisfaction has gained new attention within the context of the paradigm shift from transactional marketing to relationship marketing (Sheth, Parvatiyar 1994). Organizations can accomplish customer satisfaction by satisfying their customers’ needs and wants (LaBarbera, Mazursky 1983). Customer satisfaction as a judgment that a product or service feature, or the product or service itself, provides a pleasurable level of consumption related fulfillment (Oliver 1997). In general satisfaction is a person’s feelings of pleasure or disappointment that result from comparing a product’s perceived performance or outcome to the expectation (Oliver, Richard 2006). If the performance falls short of expectations, the customer is dissatisfied. If the performance matches the expectations the customer is satisfied. If the performance exceeds expectations, the customer is highly satisfied and delighted (Fournier, Mick 1999). In case of mobile commerce, customer satisfaction is customer’s post-purchase appraisal and emotional response or reaction to the overall product or service, familiarity in a mobile commerce environment (Lin, Wang 2006). Jones, Sasser (1995) mentioned that achieving customer satisfaction is the main goal for most service firms today. Increasing customer satisfaction has been shown to directly affect companies’ market’s hare, which leads to improved profits, positive recommendation, and lower marketing expenditures and greatly impact the corporate image and survival (Pizam, Ellis 1999). Better service quality results in enhanced customer satisfaction, which in turn leads to strong customer loyalty. It can be stated that customers, when satisfied with the services they have experienced, are more likely to establish loyalty (Taylor et al. 1993), resulting in repeat purchases (Fornell 1992) and favorable word-of-mouth (Halstead, Page 1992). In today’s dynamic business environment from the firm’s point of view, it is about building and sustaining a strong relationship with their customers by understanding the ingredients of customer satisfaction. The key to customer loyalty is customer satisfac-tion which largely depends on the service quality offered by service providing firms. Service quality and customer satisfaction have been identified as key elements of the service-profit chain (Heskett et al. 1997). Customer service quality is a significant source of distinctive competence and often considered a key success factor in sustain-ing competitive advantage in service industries (Palmer 2001). Nowadays, delivering quality service is an integral part of an ongoing strategy of most business firms and constitutes an essential ingredient for success and survival in the present day’s com-petitive environment (Ulwick, Bettencourt 2008).

ABDULLAI DWUMFOUR , wolali Ametepe

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New Research Shows that Improving Mobile Internet Service Can Reduce Digital Inequality

Over 90% of the U.S. population has internet access. 

However, many households, particularly those of low socioeconomic status, are “smartphone-dependent,” meaning they rely purely on their smartphone for internet access. As a result, their connection may be unstable or slow, and they may be constrained by data caps that limit how much they can use the internet. This puts them at a disadvantage compared to households with internet access through smartphones and other broadband connections at home and work, perpetuating digital inequality between disadvantaged and advantaged households. 

The smartphone dependence of many disadvantaged households begs the question: If mobile internet service was better – e.g. if it was faster, more reliable, and/or didn’t come with data constraints – could that reduce digital inequality and level the playing field? Researchers from the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business and Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business studied this question and found the answer is “yes.”

Karthik Kannan , assistant professor of IT and Operations Management at the Cox School of Business and Georgia Tech Ph.D. graduate, led the project. “I was interested in the effect of data caps. For example, when you have 10GB of data per month and use more, you are charged extra, or your connection is throttled,” said Kannan. “So, I partnered with a large telecommunications provider to study what happens when their subscribers switched from capped to unlimited data plans. I was particularly interested in differences between high-income and low-income households.”

Kannan, along with  Eric Overby , Catherine and Edwin Wahlen Professor of Information Technology Management, and  Sri Narasimhan , Gregory J. Owens Professor of Information Technology Management, at the Scheller College of Business, found that while all households increased their data use after switching to an unlimited plan, the increase was significantly larger for families of low socioeconomic status.

“That was our initial finding: that improving mobile internet service by removing the data cap had disproportionately large benefits for disadvantaged households,” said Overby. “But that didn’t mean much in and of itself. If those households weren’t using the additional data for ‘enriching’ purposes like accessing educational, health care, or career-related data, the additional data consumption wouldn’t translate into positive social benefits. Indeed, years of research on digital inequality have consistently shown a ‘usage gap’ in which advantaged households take fuller advantage of internet access improvements than disadvantaged households. The result is that internet improvements often exacerbate inequality. So, we dug deeper.”

Specifically, the researchers leveraged the telecommunication provider’s data categorization system to study changes in the consumption of educational data. They found that disadvantaged households experienced disproportionate increases in education data consumption (as well as in overall data consumption) after switching to unlimited mobile data. Although advantaged households increased their education data consumption by approximately 15MB (or about three digital textbooks) per month after switching to unlimited data, disadvantaged households increased their education data consumption by approximately 24MB (or about five digital textbooks) per month.

 “We can’t be sure that these disproportionate increases in education data consumption will help disadvantaged households narrow gaps in educational outcomes. However, this is clearly a step in the right direction,” said Kannan. 

 The research is directly relevant to the Federal Communications Commission’s 2023 inquiry into the effects of data caps on disadvantaged households. Narasimhan explains, “Let’s say that based on their inquiry, the FCC decides to limit the use of data caps. A logical question is: will that do any good? In other words, will disadvantaged households take advantage of their improved mobile internet service in a way that can reduce digital inequality? Prior to our research, we didn’t really know. But based on our research, the answer is yes.”

 The research paper is forthcoming in Management Science and available at  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4173558 .

research paper on mobile telecommunications

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New research shows removing data caps to cell phone usage may not only reduce digital inequality but might increase education data consumption by disadvantaged populations. 

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