- It’s still early, but now’s the time to get a jump on 6G, according to Verizon's Consumer CEO
- What’s at stake: innovation and national security
- Spectrum is a key battleground, as well as getting U.S. companies involved in setting 6G standards
MOBILE FUTURE FORWARD, SEATTLE—Say what you will about 5G. It remains a huge disappointment for a lot of people. But that doesn’t mean U.S. operators are throwing in the towel when it comes to 6G. Far from it. According to Verizon Consumer Group CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath, the U.S. needs to lead in 6G – no excuses.
Of course, the industry is just now in the midst of a years-long journey to develop 6G technical specifications. Sampath acknowledged as much during a keynote here late Thursday. But for America, now is the time to get a jump on 6G, in part because it’s a national security issue.
“If we are not No. 1 in 6G, it’s a shame on us. We have to be No. 1 in 6G,” he said.
Part of attaining that vision lies in spectrum policy. He noted that one of the first things the Trump 2.0 administration did was to make sure the One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes a significant amount of spectrum for U.S. wireless operators.
As it stands right now, by 2028, China will have four times more mid-band spectrum than the U.S., “so we got a lot of catching to do,” he said.
While Asia is “a little more aggressive” in the lead up to 6G, the situation in Europe is quite different because operators there aren’t generating the kinds of cash flows they are in the U.S. Therefore, European operators are not as eager to jump on the 6G train, according to Sampath.
Another area where U.S. companies need to lead in 6G is in the standards organizations.
“We need more American companies to take part in standard bodies so they can vote, they can have a strong say in how the standard is set,” he said. “It has to be set given our capabilities, what we want … It’s super important we don't let China take the lead.”
Where 5G went wrong
Before the industry starts deciding what it’s going to do in 6G, it’s worthwhile to examine what went wrong with 5G. Or, if you want to be more polite: things that didn’t quite go as planned in 5G.
“One of the things I've been disappointed in, personally, and I take accountability for it, is we got devices right in 5G. We got the network right. We didn't get the applications right,” he said.
To explain what happened with applications, he said Verizon was about five years ahead of itself in the Mobile Edge Compute (MEC) space, which refers to bringing compute capabilities closer to end-users by integrating compute and storage services at the edge of the network.
“We invested very early in the MEC, the mobile edge compute. We were only five years ahead of our times. We made zero money,” Sampath acknowledged. “But now I do think in hindsight, our thesis was right.”
The problem, again: “The applications were not there,” he said.
Most app providers had to reconfigure their applications because it’s too expensive to run the full app at the edge. “People were like, it’s not worth our time,” he said.
He’s optimistic that will change with 6G, in part because AI will be mature enough to bake it into the standard and make it all work as advertised.
RedCap: Oops
Speaking of standards, Sampath got a chuckle from the audience when he noted the odd choice of the term “RedCap” for a new generation of IoT technology based on 5G. The moniker is the industry’s shorthand for “reduced capacity,” which was introduced in 3GPP Release 17. It refers to reduced complexity and lower costs, in addition to power-saving features.
But it doesn’t translate well when trying to communicate those capabilities to the broader world.
“It’s like the worst marketing ever. Imagine telling someone the next good product is called ‘reduced capacity.’ I really do think we should fix that. RedCap is not a great name,” he said.
Queried on stage by Mobile Future Forward event host Chetan Sharma, Sampath covered a range of issues, from the role of AI in Verizon’s customer care and network optimization to its investment in fixed wireless access and fiber.
Often identified as the heir apparent to current Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg, Sampath ended his session on a high note about the state of the wireless industry.
“There are very few businesses that have technology, that have speed … It's competitive. I'm so happy to be here, and so happy to work with so many of you in this space,” he concluded.
Hard to argue with that.