Advancement of 6G Telecommunications Technology

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Telecommunications and Information Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number: 240430-0121]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0660-XC062</RIN> <SUBJECT>Advancement of 6G Telecommunications Technology</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice, request for public comment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is requesting comments on the current state of development of sixth generation (6G) wireless communications technology and to guide Executive Branch policies on necessary steps to facilitate the advancement of this technology. As potential requirements for 6G are being developed by industry, governmental, academic, and civil society stakeholders, NTIA hopes to hear from the public on the following questions to inform our own future engagement in support of 6G development and deployment. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before August 21, 2024. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> All electronic public comments on this action, identified by <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> docket number NTIA-2024-0001, may be submitted through the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> The docket established for this rulemaking can be found at <E T="03">www.Regulations.gov,</E> NTIA-2024-0001. Click the “Comment Now!” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. Responders should include a page number on each page of their submissions. Please do not include in your comments information of a confidential nature, such as sensitive personal information or proprietary information. All comments received are a part of the public record and will generally be posted to <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> without change. All personal identifying information ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> name, address) voluntarily submitted by the commenter may be publicly accessible. Information obtained as a result of this notice may be used by the federal government for program planning on a non-attribution basis. For more detailed instructions about submitting comments, see the “Instructions for Commenters” section at the end of this Notice. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kate Dimsdale, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Room 4701, Washington, DC 20230; telephone: (202) 482-3167; email: <E T="03">kdimsdale@ntia.gov.</E> Please direct media inquiries to NTIA's Office of Public Affairs: (202) 482-7002; email: <E T="03">press@ntia.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> Secure and reliable telecommunications services are vital to ensuring the United States' economic competitiveness. As the telecommunications industry continues to deploy 5G wireless communications systems across the United States that both embody and enable standards-based, secure, reliable, and interoperable telecommunications ecosystems, the industry is beginning to plan for the development of the next generation of wireless communications: 6G. Advances in mobile networks have brought the internet to billions of people around the world who have, in turn, been able to access new opportunities and make new connections. 6G is expected to be the next step in continuing this positive momentum. Indeed, the U.S. and its like-minded partners have already established a core set of principles to shape the future of this critical technology to advance economic and national security interests. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  “Joint Statement Endorsing Principles for 6G: Secure, Open & Resilient by Design,” February 2024. [Online]. Available: https://ntia.gov/speechtestimony/2024/joint-statement-endorsing-principles-6g-secure-open-resilient-design. </FTNT> In a report submitted to NTIA in December 2023, the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CSMAC) describes the 6G Vision as “Dynamic connectivity across public and private digital and physical domains that enables intelligent communications while creating conditions for economic growth, enhanced national security, and societal well-being.”  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> In addition to International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) work on International Mobile Telecommunications-2030 (IMT-2030), there are a variety of organizations authoring 6G visions, including the U.S. NextG Alliance, <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> the India's Bharat 6G Alliance, <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> China's IMT-2030 Promotion Group, and more. 6G is expected to be a general-purpose technology that provides pervasive and seamless connectivity across public and private digital and physical domains. 6G usage scenarios will likely not only build on those that began in 5G—including enhanced mobile broadband, massive machine-type communications, and ultra-reliable, low-latency communications—but will also expand ubiquitous connectivity, integrated sensing and communication, and artificial intelligence. New and emerging 6G-enabled applications hold promise to help achieve both societal and economic domestic goals including public safety, security, resilience, interoperability, economic competitiveness, and digital equity; international goals such as the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals and environmental goals; and enterprise goals like productivity, cost savings, quality, and time-to-market. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  “CSMAC Report of Subcommittee on 6G,” December 2023. [Online]. Available: <E T="03">https://www.ntia.gov/sites/default/files/2023-12/6g_subcommittee_final_report.pdf.</E> </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  “National 6G Roadmap,” February 2022. [Online]. Available: <E T="03">https://nextgalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/NextGA-Roadmap.pdf.</E> </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  “Bharat 6G Vision,” March 2023. [Online]. Available: <E T="03">https://xsinfoways.net/6G-Alliance/img/Bharat-6G-Vision-Statement-copy%202_1.pdf.</E> </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  “White Paper on 6G Vision and Candidate Technologies,” June 2021. [Online]. Available: <E T="03">http://www.caict.ac.cn/english/news/202106/P020210608349616163475.pdf.</E> </FTNT> To ensure that 6G can meet these objectives, NTIA is requesting comments from interested parties to help inform the development of appropriate policy positions that will enable the U.S. to plan effectively for the 6G future and ensure that U.S. industry plays a leading role in the development of global standards and innovation ecosystems for 6G. NTIA is most interested in comments on 6G topics related to proposed priorities, likely or potential use cases, and research and development from relevant stakeholders, including comments from stakeholders in the private sector (specifically, wireless broadband internet service providers, original equipment manufacturers and network vendors, developers and end-users of spectrum-based technologies and services, and contractors for federal missions), academia, civil society, the public sector, and others. This request for comment is not focused on spectrum issues surrounding 6G. NTIA, in coordination with executive branch agencies and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), is currently implementing the 2023 National Spectrum Strategy (NSS), which received over 130 comments and established the foundation for the 2024 NSS Implementation Plan. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> NTIA encourages interested parties to engage with NTIA's Office of Spectrum Management on implementation of the NSS and other spectrum matters. <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  “National Spectrum Strategy,” November 13, 2023. [Online]. Available: <E T="03">https://www.ntia.gov/report/2023/national-spectrum-strategy-pdf,</E> “National Spectrum Strategy Implementation Plan,” March 12, 2024. [Online]. Available: <E T="03">https://www.ntia.gov/sites/default/files/publications/national-spectrum-strategy-implementation-plan.pdf,</E> and “National Spectrum Strategy Request for Comment Responses,” April 19, 2023. [Online]. Available: <E T="03">https://www.ntia.gov/issues/national-spectrum-strategy/stakeholder-engagement/received-comments/request-for-comment-responses.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request for Comments</HD> NTIA welcomes input on any matter that commenters believe is important to the U.S. Government's role in 6G development and use. Commenters are invited to comment on the full range of issues presented by this Request for Comments and are encouraged to address any or all of the following questions, or to provide additional information relevant to 6G technology. When responding to one or more of the questions below, please note in the text of your response the number of the question to which you are responding. As part of their response, commenters are welcome to provide specific actionable proposals, rationales, and relevant factual information. NTIA seeks public comment on the following questions: <HD SOURCE="HD1">Enabling 6G Success</HD> 1. Which specific use cases will benefit from 6G technology initially, and how can the U.S. Government support these innovations? 2. What existing or future policies should the U.S. Government promote to support 6G development beyond spectrum use? What existing or future U.S. Government policies or initiatives could potentially stifle 6G development and deployment, or harm the ability of companies in the U.S. or its like-minded partners to compete in international markets? 3. What new challenges will arise from 6G regarding privacy, equity, and civil liberties? How can the U.S. Government ensure that the benefits of 6G technology extend to all segments ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━