Shaping Future 6G Networks

To this end, as previously discussed, it is important to provide low‐cost, low‐energy and highly available connectivity in 6G networks. Notably, Smart‐X applications need global coverage and the possibility of transmitting and receiving data with the same connection throughout the whole world. Consider, for example, the current production paradigm where a product may be manufactured in China, shipped to Europe (through either a ship or an airplane), further processed, and then delivered to a customer in the United States. To enable a seamless, global tracking and monitoring, the sensors on the device should be able to authenticate and securely transmit data, irrespective of the area in which the device is located. Moreover, given the scale of the deployment of Smart‐X sensors, it will be important to design 6G networks so that such sensors can be cheap, consume very little energy, and be easily disposable and/or reusable for different applications.

6G is positioned to revolutionize the financial sector by allowing companies to launch new products and services not previously possible, move into new markets, and increase productivity.

Along these lines, 6G can enable efficient HFT, a new method of trading where powerful computer programs can transact millions of financial decisions in fractions of a seconds. For these applications, receiving data even a millisecond sooner can represent a clear advantage over the competitors and generate profits. To this aim, financial institutions typically tend to buy computing facilities as close as possible to the trading and exchange offices to get the trading transactions close to the speed of light, which is, however, a very expensive and often impractical approach. In this context, 6G innovations in the wireless architecture design could offer a better (and more accessible) solution for achieving ultralow‐latency communication in comparison to fiber optic equipment and on‐site deployments, especially in those (rural and/or remote) areas where wired connectivity cannot be easily provided.

The blockchain technology has also gained momentum in the financial industry as a solution to decentralize and eliminate intermediaries in financial feeds while guaranteeing transparency and anonymity. In this perspective, blockchain can be considered as an additional component technology to support financial instruments in 6G networks [10]. 6G innovations, in fact, can provide elevated security features, e.g. through quantum computation, as well as reduce processing fees and improve resilience and resistance to external attacks.

Moreover, in the financial world, 6G can facilitate merchants and banks to deploy transformative and highly personalized customer service experiences, including virtual tellers in banking, high‐resolution digital signage with facial recognition in retail, and AR/VR‐enabled e‐commerce (which would allow potential customers to explore virtual showrooms, improve their shopping experience and, in the end, encourage them to complete a purchase). By supporting high‐capacity data communications in real‐time, 6G can also support time‐sensitive banking operations for both ordinary customers and banks, and accelerate inclusion of small financial institutions, e.g. from emerging markets, by transitioning from (expensive) banking facilities to more accessible, ready‐to‐use digital banking experiences. Furthermore, 6G can help implement more robust and secure fraud prevention without consumer intervention or other expensive direct activities.

Large‐scale financial operations could further stress already congested communication networks, which will struggle to guarantee low‐latency connectivity with very high degrees of reliability. For example, for HFT, latency requirements should be in the order of sub‐millisecond (a 1‐millisecond advantage in trading applications may be worth $100 million a year to a major brokerage firm, according to some estimates [11]), in contrast to the more relaxed (though already challenging) 1 ms 5G target. For blockchain operations, in turn, security, as well as energy consumption, will be key concerns. Finally, digitalization in the financial industry and the introduction of artificial‐intelligence‐based procedures will result in very large amounts of data to be exchanged and processed, which will likely saturate 5G capacity: the per‐user data rate may need to reach the Gbps range, at least one order of magnitude up from the 100 Mbps of 5G.

In this chapter, we analyzed possible business‐oriented use cases, scenarios, and relative KPIs for future 6G networks, as summarized in Figure 2.1. Notably, even though the market verticals we presented have been already considered in 4G and 5G networks, we focused on applications of these verticals that would not be supported by 5G networks in terms of (often combined) throughput, latency, coverage, and reliability requirements. After a brief introduction, we discussed the importance of services that (i) enable remote presence or inspection with high fidelity, including sensory information (teleportation, digital twin); (ii) globally connect goods, vehicles, and machines (Smart‐X IoT, smart transportation and industry); and (iii) provide secure continuous connectivity for critical information (remote healthcare interventions, PS, financial world). We believe that this chapter can provide a basis for a requirement‐driven development of future 6G networks, to enable key digital services for the connected society of 2030 and beyond.

Figure 2.1 Representation of multiple KPIs of 6G use cases and improvements with respect to 5G.

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