With subscriber growth stagnating, capital costs rising and diminishing returns from traditional businesses, telecom operators are retooling their strategy for the next cellular generation, 6G.
The goal is to make 6G a software-defined, AI-enabled evolution instead of replacing existing costly hardware. It is a move that telecoms see as one that will preserve investments, shorten upgrade times, accelerate innovation and keep networks flexible for new growth opportunities.
Challenges
Mobile telecom operators are at an inflection point. The smartphone market is flat and saturated. Everyone has a smartphone. There are not many people left that do not have one. Multiple consumers have more than one smartphone.
“Telecoms are not going to grow that much more [from smartphones],” said Phil Solis, research director of client processors and connectivity at market research firm International Data Corp. (IDC). “And mobile operators can’t charge more for these phones or services. So, you see telecoms moving to other areas like IoT.”
Telecoms are also upping their interest and investment into fixed wireless access (FWA), otherwise known as cellular home broadband. AT&T just spent $23 billion on spectrum to expand its 5G FWA platform and T-Mobile and Verizon are pushing their own solutions as an alternative to home broadband.
“[Telecoms] are in a situation where they can’t increase their revenue from their core business, so do they keep just investing more into the network?” Solis asked. “No, they don’t want to. They want 6G to be a software upgrade.”
Software upgrade
Telecoms cite high infrastructure costs and advances in software as the reason for this sea change in cellular generations.
“We are at a time in the life cycle where there is a lot of focus on making sure the things we change have quantifiable benefits,” said Marie Hogan, 6G portfolio strategy at Ericsson. “We want to bring something new if there is a real benefit. So many operators would like a software upgrade for 6G.”
A T-Mobile spokesperson said 6G will build on the flexible, software-defined foundation that is already being established with 5G standalone and 5G Advanced.
T-Mobile’s future network will be increasingly cloud-native, automated and AI-driven allowing the company to make upgrades faster to deploy and more efficient since it will all be software.
“But that doesn’t mean 6G will be just a ‘software update’ — as with every new generation, there will be advances in spectrum, radio technology and network intelligence that require new hardware innovation and investment,” the T-Mobile spokesperson said. “T-Mobile is already preparing for that future through our work on AI-driven RAN (Radio Access Network) technology, which allows the network to adapt dynamically to user demand, improve energy efficiency, and manage spectrum in real time.”
These AI capabilities will allow for a bridge between the 5G networks of today to self-optimizing 6G networks, T-Mobile said. The recent deal between Nokia and Nvidia to develop AI-native RAN technologies with T-Mobile and the AI RAN Alliance and other spectrum initiatives will further flesh out how this transition happens in the next five years.
AT&T is also preparing for the transition to the 6G with a focus on minimizing infrastructure overhauls and leveraging advances in software and network architecture.
“Our ongoing network transformation is designed to ensure that today’s modernization efforts will support the transition to 6G in a forward-compatible, cost-effective way,” said an AT&T spokesperson.
The AT&T spokesperson said the goal is to “future enable” the network that features support for a smooth, software-driven evolution. This will allow telecoms to:
- Preserve flexibility
- Minimize disruption
- Protect past investments
“Ultimately, our goal is to deliver next generation 6G benefits efficiently and seamlessly, with an architecture built for adaptability and long-term value,” the spokesperson said.
What it means
Having the next cellular generation done in software means that telecoms will keep as much existing 5G network hardware — RAN and SA core — while enabling 6G features, functions, new air interfaces and new spectrum support via software across those platforms.
Telecoms will need to design the network architecture so that hardware and software are decoupled, modular and allow the software stack to evolve without requiring wholesale new physical equipment.
It implies that new features, use cases and services in 6G will rely heavily on cloudification and virtualization compared to purely radio hardware upgrades.
Likely this means an interim assessment on 3GPP and hardware decisions starting in the middle of 2026. This includes decisions on waveforms, hardware impact and what can be re-used to be 6G capable.
As part of the upgrade to 6G, existing 5G cell towers, repeaters, antennas and more will likely be reused or upgraded rather than completely replaced. Source: Adobe Stock
Infrastructure reuse
6G’s future depends on flexible infrastructure and will be designed as a software-defined network from the ground up.
But that won’t mean infrastructure already in place won’t be used, depending on the age and functionality of the equipment. Reusing this 5G network fabric — towers, small cells, repeaters, radios — will allow telecoms to:
- Deploy 6G upgrades to baseband software or virtual network functions.
- Avoid replacing radio units and antennas if they can be reprogrammed.
- Quickly scale new capabilities to the network once standards stabilize.
According to Ericsson’s Hogan, this will allow the path from 5G to 6G to happen in a more “gentle fashion.” Starting from 5G SA core network to a software-defined 6G core network leveraging infrastructure already in place.
“We may have an option of gradually introducing more functionality into the network,” Hogan said. “It won’t necessarily be a rip-and-replace of the infrastructure as a large portion of the standalone core will be able to be reused.”
Arbitrator of innovation
Ultimately, one of the major goals of 6G’s software-defined future will be supercharging innovation across the electronics ecosystem.
As upgrades will be able to happen quickly over-the-air, when new use cases, standards and spectrum are available, the network will be able to adapt quickly unlike other generations. This means rolling out new features in months, rather than years.
This potential could make telecoms the arbitrator of innovation using 6G networks to accelerate R&D for:
- Connectivity
- Energy
- Automation
- Healthcare
- Industrial IoT
“There are some use cases in 5G — smart factories, smart wearables, integrated AI and introducing 5G in enterprise — that will not happen until 6G,” Hogan said. “6G will be able to take some of these use cases and scale them up. We have a lot of learning to do over the next five years in how to do this.”
