It’s hard to have a useful conversation about 6G. First, all the “G” successions have been the subject of merciless hype, which makes it hard to know even basic truths. Second, the 6G documents are engineering specifications (the 3GPP writes specs, which other groups must formally standardize) and not designed to be service descriptions associated with enterprise or even telco service planning. Finally, it’s still a work in progress. We aren’t likely, say my 6G friends, to see commercial 6G services before 2030 and perhaps not until 2031, and reading the detailed specifications is a chore for anyone not a telecom engineer (and boring, I suspect, to some of them too).
In parallel with all of this is the basic truth that when 6G insiders talk about “use cases” they’re really talking about stuff that 6G could support, or be required for, rather than stuff that is in a position to make an actual business case. Many in the telco world point out that this is how 5G went astray; use cases were taken as promised changes in available services and features, most of which never appeared. So where are we, as of June, 2026? Let’s try to work it out.
The 3GPP release process is currently advancing both 5G Advanced and 6G, with the former envisioned as a bridge to the latter. 6G is seen almost universally as a “generational leap”, so much so that most experts tell me that the predicted features are not currently needed. Sound like the 5G boondoggle? Well, the optimistic proponents of this approach say that 5G Advanced will move 5G capabilities toward the 6G generational barrier, close enough that work could be done on the applications that would really need 6G.
Given all of this, I think we can fairly say that the impact of 6G will depend on the pace at which the target “use cases” that combine to create the features in the generational leap promised would actually develop. Many of the use cases, we’ll see, sure sound like things 5G was supposed to bring about. If it had, then 5G Advanced wouldn’t seem to be needed, and even 6G might not be. One must assume that some of the push behind 6G-leaping is the belief that 5G didn’t improve things enough. So, to assess where we really are with 5G/6G transformation, we need to look at the use cases and the incremental feature jump from 5G to 5G Advanced and then to 6G.
The use cases for 5G fell into three categories, enhanced mobile broadband, massive IoT device support, and support for highly reliable low-latency connections, also related to IoT applications. In the first category we find 4K/8K streaming, AR/VR support, and FWA. In the second, it’s primarily smart cities, and in the final one autonomous vehicles, robotics and robotic healthcare applications, and automated supply chain management. All these are cited as use cases for 5G Advanced and 6G too.
IMHO, there’s little support for 5G having a major impact in any of these areas, so we have to conclude that the thesis for 5G Advanced and 6G is that there was a deficiency in 5G features that inhibited the development of the applications. We also have to conclude that the risk is that development was actually inhibited by factors beyond the mobile service, and thus may or may not be addressed. That raises four possibilities.
First, it may be that the problem was in fact that 5G didn’t do enough, and if that’s the case I’d say it’s likely that 6G at least would correct them. This is clearly the hope of the industry, but the problem is that if this were the case, we should see the most service-tolerant examples of the applications actually deploying now. We do have some examples of some of the use cases, in utility, manufacturing, transportation, and healthcare. However, enterprises in these verticals tell me that they don’t see network service features as the barrier to further expansion of these applications. In some utility examples of massive IoT, 4G LTE has proved to be sufficient to the point that migrating the application to 5G didn’t pay back in any way.
Second, it may be that the issues with these use cases had nothing to do with 5G deficiencies, but that those issues (whatever their source) will be corrected outside mobile evolution, and in time for 6G. There is some support for this, too. AR/VR glasses are starting to appear, and clearly any xR application would benefit from having supporting devices in use before it was attempted, because the new use cases would not then have to justify the glasses’ cost. However, we’d then have to justify a belief that this would facilitate the development of use cases that needed more than 5G. Can we, or is this another case of believing hype? If not, then staying with 5G would almost surely be the most profitable choice.
Third, it may be that the issues of these use cases had nothing to do with 5G deficiencies, and they will not be corrected in time for 6G. This happens to be my own view of most of the use cases. These use cases require deployment of application software, hosting, and in many cases, devices. They also require a business case, which means that there will be pressure to reduce communications costs to improve the odds of reaching the ROI target. In the days when the Internet was contending with other options for connectivity, the theory was that best-efforts service wouldn’t be good enough for many applications. What happened was first that “best efforts” got better as the Internet grew, and second, that applications tuned their connectivity requirements to fit the lowest cost service available.
The final possibility is that the use cases are simply not realistic, meaning that the whole story of 5G was built on use-case hype. The difference between this possibility and the last is a bit soft, but I’m adding it because there are some use cases I think are simply unrealistic. Robotic remote surgery, for example, may well be an example, but it’s likely only between hospital sites that would have permanent high-bandwidth wireline connectivity. Some autonomous vehicle missions are unrealistic because most of the latency-critical features of these vehicles would have to be handled with on-board intelligence, leaving mobile connectivity features like navigation that don’t demand special services.
Where are we with this? I think the simple truth is that we have no reason to believe that simply deploying 5G Advanced or 6G will promote any of the use cases that were previously claimed for 5G, and failed to develop into a new service market for telcos. Thus, the mobile standards process is focusing increasingly on a Plan B.
Which (surprise, surprise!) is AI. I have to say that of all the things that have happened in 6G so far, the decision to explicitly focus on AI is the one that I believe is the worst. There’s nothing wrong with having an architectural objective to allow AI to be integrated into infrastructure (and it wouldn’t be much work, either) but to make it a primary goal at a time when many (myself included) believe that 6G architecture decisions, and even many broad infrastructure decisions, are dragging on too long, is a major problem. Not the worst, though, because while there are issues with how the use cases for new 5G Advanced and 6G services need a boost, as I’ve noted here, there is no evidence that AI could raise revenues except in support of the same use cases. Double down on what failed in 5G by not addressing those use cases properly, then add in AI to double down again?
Crazy? Maybe not, since AI is now the “universal band-aid”, something you can stick on any strategic or tactical wound to render yourself safe from Wall Street. But the problem with first aid in any form is that it’s really supposed to tie you over until real, decisive, aid comes along. In this case, I’m afraid that the AI band-aid on 6G is going to cover up problems that need to be solved to save 6G, and maybe to save the telecoms.
