It’s Time To Rethink 6G
是时候重新思考 6G 技术了

Is the worldwide race to keep expanding mobile bandwidth a fool’s errand? Could maximum data speeds—on mobile devices, at home, at work—be approaching “fast enough” for most people for most purposes?  

These heretical questions are worth asking, because industry bandwidth tracking data has lately been revealing something surprising: Terrestrial and mobile-data growth is slowing down. In fact, absent a dramatic change in consumer tech and broadband usage patterns, data-rate demand appears set to top out below 1 billion bits per second (1 gigabit per second) in just a few years.  

This is a big deal. A presumption of endless growth in wireless and terrestrial broadband data rates has for decades been a key driver behind telecom research funding. To keep telecom’s R&D engine rooms revving, research teams around the world have innovated a seemingly endless succession of technologies to expand bandwidth rates, such as 2G’s move to digital cell networks, 3G’s enhanced data-transfer capabilities, and 5G’s low-latency wireless connectivity.  

Yet present-day consumer usage appears set to throw a spanner in the works. Typical real-world 5G data rates today achieve up to 500 megabits per second for download speeds (and less for uploads). And some initial studies suggest 6G networks could one day supply data at 100 Gb/s. But the demand side of the equation suggests a very different situation.  

Mainstream consumer applications requiring more than 1 Gb/s border on the nonexistent. 

This is in part because mobile applications that need more than 15 to 20 Mb/s are rare, while mainstream consumer applications requiring more than 1 Gb/s border on the nonexistent.  

At most, meeting the demand for multiple simultaneous active applications and users requires hundreds of Mb/s range. To date, no new consumer technologies have emerged to expand the bandwidth margins much beyond the 1 Gb/s plateau.
要满足多个同时运行的应用程序和用户的需求，最多需要数百 Mb/s 的带宽。迄今为止，还没有新的消费技术能将带宽余量扩大到 1 Gb/s 以上。

Yet wireless companies and researchers today still set their sights on a marketplace where consumer demand will gobble up as much bandwidth as can be provided by their mobile networks. The thinking here seems to be that if more bandwidth is available, new use cases and applications will spontaneously emerge to consume it.
然而，今天的无线公司和研究人员仍然把目光投向这样一个市场：消费者的需求将吞噬移动网络所能提供的尽可能多的带宽。他们的想法似乎是，如果能提供更多带宽，新的用例和应用就会自发出现，从而消耗这些带宽。

Is that such a foregone conclusion, though? Many technologies have had phases where customers eagerly embrace every improvement in some parameter—until a saturation point is reached and improvements are ultimately met with a collective shrug.
但这是必然的结论吗？许多技术都曾经历过这样的阶段：客户热切地接受某些参数的每一次改进--直到达到饱和点，改进最终会被集体抛弃。

Consider a very brief history of airspeed in commercial air travel. Passenger aircraft today fly at around 900 kilometers per hour—and have continued to traverse the skies at the same airspeed range for the past five decades. Although supersonic passenger aircraft found a niche from the 1970s through the early 2000s with the Concorde, commercial supersonic transport is no longer available for the mainstream consumer marketplace today.
请看商业航空旅行的空速简史。今天，客机的飞行速度约为每小时 900 公里，在过去的五十年里，客机一直以相同的速度在天空中飞行。虽然超音速客机在 20 世纪 70 年代到 21 世纪初的协和式客机中占有一席之地，但今天的主流消费市场已不再提供商用超音速运输。

To be clear, there may still be niche use cases for many gigabits per second of wireless bandwidth—just as there may still be executives or world leaders who continue to look forward to spanning the globe at supersonic speeds.
说白了，每秒数千亿比特的无线带宽可能仍有一些小众用例--就像仍有一些高管或世界领袖期待以超音速横跨全球一样。

But what if the vast majority of 6G’s consumer bandwidth demand ultimately winds up resembling today’s 5G profile? It’s a possibility worth imagining.
但是，如果 6G 消费者带宽需求的绝大部分最终都与今天的 5G 相似呢？这种可能性值得想象。

Consider a Bandwidth-Saturated World
考虑带宽饱和的世界

Transmitting high-end 4K video today requires 15 Mb/s, according to Netflix. Home broadband upgrades from, say, hundreds of Mb/s to 1,000 Mb/s (or 1 Gb/s) typically make little to no noticeable difference for the average end user. Likewise, for those with good 4G connectivity, 5G makes much less of an improvement on the mobile experience than advertisers like to claim—despite 5G networks being, according to Cisco, 1.4 to 14 times as fast as 4G.
据 Netflix 称，如今传输高端 4K 视频需要 15 Mb/s。对于普通终端用户来说，家庭宽带从数百 Mb/s 升级到 1,000 Mb/s（或 1 Gb/s）通常几乎没有明显的差别。同样，对于那些拥有良好 4G 连接的用户来说，尽管 5G 网络的速度是 4G 的 1.4 到 14 倍，但 5G 对移动体验的改善远没有广告商所宣称的那么大。

So, broadly, for a typical mobile device today, going much above 15 Mb/s borders on pointless. For a home, assuming two or three inhabitants all separately browsing or watching, somewhere between 100 Mb/s and 1 Gb/s marks the approximate saturation point beyond which further improvements become less and less noticeable, for most use cases.
因此，就目前典型的移动设备而言，速率远高于 15 Mb/s 几乎毫无意义。对于一个家庭来说，假设有两三个人都在分别浏览或观看，那么 100 Mb/s 到 1 Gb/s 之间的速度就是一个大致的饱和点，超过这个饱和点，对于大多数使用情况来说，进一步的改进就会变得越来越不明显。

Probing a more extreme use case, one of the largest bandwidth requirements in recent consumer tech is Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, whose “jaw-dropping bandwidth demand,” in the words of Windows Central, amounts to a maximum of 180 Mb/s.
在更极端的使用案例中，微软《飞行模拟器 2024》的带宽需求是近期消费类技术中最大的带宽需求之一，用 Windows Central 的话说，它的带宽需求 "令人瞠目"，最高达到 180 Mb/s。

Stop to think about that for one moment. Here is a leading-edge tech product requiring less than one-fifth of 1 Gb/s, and such a voracious bandwidth appetite today is considered “jaw-dropping.”
请静下心来想一想。这是一种尖端技术产品，所需的带宽不到 1 Gb/s 的五分之一，而如此贪婪的带宽需求在今天却被认为是 "令人瞠目结舌"。

But what about the need to “future proof” the world’s networks? Perhaps most mobile and terrestrial networks don’t need many-Gb/s connectivity now, say the bigger-is-always-better proponents. But the world will soon!
但是，世界网络 "面向未来 "的需求又是什么呢？支持 "越大越好 "的人说，也许大多数移动和地面网络现在并不需要多 Gb/s 的连接。但世界很快就会需要了！

For starters, then, what bandwidth-hogging technologies are today on the horizon?
那么，今天有哪些占用带宽的技术即将问世呢？

In September, Apple unveiled its iPhone 16, which CEO Tim Cooksaid would feature generative AI broadly “across [Apple] products.” Could Apple’s new AI capabilities perhaps be a looming, bandwidth-consuming dark horse?
今年 9 月，苹果公司发布了 iPhone 16，其首席执行官蒂姆-库克（Tim Cook）表示，该产品将 "在（苹果）产品中 "广泛采用生成式人工智能。苹果的新人工智能功能会不会是一匹迫在眉睫的耗费带宽的黑马？

One high-bandwidth use case would involve the latest iPhone using the camera to recognize a scene and comment on what’s in it. However, that’s not dissimilar to Google Lens’s visual search feature, which hasn’t markedly changed network traffic. Indeed, this sort of feature, perhaps used a few times per day, could require bandwidth equivalent to a second or two of high-definition video. None of this would come close to saturating the general bandwidth capacities noted above.
一个高带宽用例是最新款 iPhone 使用摄像头识别场景并对其中的内容发表评论。不过，这与谷歌 Lens 的视觉搜索功能并无二致，并没有明显改变网络流量。事实上，这种功能每天使用几次，所需的带宽可能相当于一两秒的高清视频。这些都不会接近上述一般带宽容量的饱和。

To play devil’s advocate a little more, consider a representative batch of five soon-to-be-scaled-up, potentially high-bandwidth consumer technologies that do already exist. Do any of them appear poised to generate the many-Gb/s demand that present-day net usage does not?
再多说几句，我们不妨考虑一下具有代表性的五种即将升级的、潜在的高带宽消费技术。它们中是否有任何一种技术能够产生目前网络使用所不具备的每秒多千兆比特的需求？

What about autonomous cars, for instance? Surely they’ll need as much bandwidth as they can possibly be given.
比如自动驾驶汽车呢？它们肯定需要尽可能多的带宽。

Yet, the precious few autonomous cars out in the world today are generally designed to work without much in the way of instantaneous Internet communication. And no autonomous tech around the bend appears set to change the equation substantially, concerning instantaneous bandwidth needs. The future of autonomy may be revolutionary and ultimately inevitable, but it doesn’t appear to require network connectivity much beyond a decent 5G connection.
然而，目前世界上为数不多的自动驾驶汽车在设计上一般都不需要太多的即时互联网通信。在即时带宽需求方面，未来的自动驾驶技术似乎也不会大幅改变这一等式。未来的自动驾驶技术可能是革命性的，最终也是不可避免的，但它对网络连接的要求似乎不会超过像样的 5G 连接。

No new technology has emerged that demands network requirements much beyond what 4G and 5G already deliver.
目前还没有新技术对网络的要求远远超出 4G 和 5G 已经提供的技术。

Much the same argument holds for the Internet of things (IoT), which is not expected to increase network traffic above what a decent 4G connection could yield.
物联网（IoT）的情况也是如此，预计其网络流量的增长不会超过像样的 4G 连接所能产生的流量。

Holographic communications likewise offer no greater bandwidth sink than any of the above case studies do. For a typical user, holograms are in fact just stereographic video projections. So if a single 4K stream demands 15 Mb/s, then stereo 4K streams would require 30 Mb/s. Of course, sophisticated representations of entire 3D scenes for large groups of users interacting with one another in-world could conceivably push bandwidth requirements up. But at this point, we’re getting into Matrix-like imagined technologies without any solid evidence to suggest a good 4G or 5G connection wouldn’t meet the tech’s bandwidth demands.
全息通信同样不会比上述任何案例研究提供更大的带宽消耗。对于普通用户来说，全息图实际上只是立体视频投影。因此，如果单个 4K 流需要 15 Mb/s，那么立体 4K 流将需要 30 Mb/s。当然，如果要为在世界中进行互动的大型用户群提供整个 3D 场景的复杂表现形式，带宽需求可能会更高。但在这一点上，我们正在研究类似于黑客帝国的想象技术，却没有任何确凿证据表明一个良好的 4G 或 5G 连接无法满足该技术的带宽需求。

AI in general is the wild card in the deck. The mysterious future directions for this technology suggest that AI broadband and wireless bandwidth needs could conceivably exceed 1 Gb/s. But consider at least the known knowns in the equation: At the moment, present-day AI applications involve small amounts of prompt text or a few images or video clips sent to and from an edge device like a smartphone or a consumer tablet. Even if one allows for the prompt text and photo and video bandwidth requirements to dramatically expand from there, it seems unlikely to match or exceed the already strenuous requirements of a simple 4K video stream. Which, as noted above, would appear to suggest modest bandwidth demands in the range of 15 Mb/s.
总体而言，人工智能是这副牌中的 "野牌"。这项技术神秘的未来发展方向表明，人工智能对宽带和无线带宽的需求有可能超过 1 Gb/s。但至少要考虑到等式中已知的已知因素：目前，当今的人工智能应用涉及向智能手机或消费平板电脑等边缘设备发送少量提示文本或少量图像或视频片段。即使对提示文本、图片和视频带宽的要求在此基础上大幅提高，似乎也不可能达到或超过简单的 4K 视频流已经很高的要求。如上所述，这似乎表明带宽需求在 15 Mb/s 左右。

The metaverse, meanwhile, has flopped. But even if it picks up steam again tomorrow, current estimates of its bandwidth needs run from 100 Mb/s to 1 Gb/s—all within 5G’s range. Admittedly, the most aggressive longer-term forecasts for the metaverse suggest that cutting-edge applications could demand as much as 5 Gb/s bandwidth. And while it’s true that in January, Verizon delivered more than 5 Gb/s bandwidth in an experimental 5G network, that result is unlikely to be replicable for most consumers in most settings anytime soon.
与此同时，元宇宙已经失败。但是，即使元宇宙明天再次崛起，目前对其带宽需求的估计也在 100 Mb/s 到 1 Gb/s 之间--都在 5G 的范围之内。诚然，对元宇宙最积极的长期预测表明，尖端应用可能需要高达 5 Gb/s 的带宽。今年 1 月，Verizon 在实验性 5G 网络中确实提供了超过 5 Gb/s 的带宽，但这一结果不可能在短期内被大多数消费者在大多数环境中复制。

Yet, even allowing for the practical unreachability of 5 Gb/s speeds on a real-world 5G network, a reader should still weigh the fact that any such imagined applications that might ultimately consume 5 Gb/s of bandwidth represent an extreme. And only the upper end of that subset is what might one day exceed data speeds that present-day 5G tech delivers.
然而，即使考虑到现实世界中的 5G 网络实际上无法达到 5 Gb/s 的速度，读者仍应权衡这样一个事实，即任何此类最终可能消耗 5 Gb/s 带宽的想象应用都只是一个极端。而只有该子集的上限才有可能在某一天超过当今 5G 技术所提供的数据速度。

I would argue, in other words, that no new technology has emerged that demands network requirements much beyond what 4G and 5G already deliver. So at this point future-proofing telecom in the anticipation of tens or more Gb/s of consumer bandwidth demand seems like expensive insurance being taken out against an improbable event.
换句话说，我认为目前还没有出现任何新技术，对网络的要求远远超过 4G 和 5G 已经提供的技术。因此，在这一点上，为电信业未来的发展做好准备，以应对数万甚至更多 Gb/s 的消费者带宽需求，似乎就像是为不可能发生的事件购买昂贵的保险。

Consumers Have Already Discovered the Gigabit Plateau
消费者已经发现千兆高原

As can be seen in the charts below—excerpted from my book, The End of Telecoms History, and compiled from a mix of sources, including Cisco and Barclays Research—a downward trend in data growth has been evident for at least the past decade.
下图摘自我的著作《电信历史的终结》，由思科（Cisco）和巴克莱研究公司（Barclays Research）等多方资料汇编而成，从图中可以看出，至少在过去十年中，数据增长的下降趋势非常明显。

The statistics being tracked in the charts “Growth of Mobile-Data Usage” and “Growth of Landline-Data Usage” may seem a little counterintuitive at first. But it’s important to clarify that these charts do not suggest that overall bandwidth usage is declining. Rather, the conclusion these charts lead to is that the rate of bandwidth growth is slowing.
移动数据使用量增长 "和 "固定电话数据使用量增长 "图表中跟踪的统计数据乍看起来可能有点违反直觉。但必须澄清的是，这些图表并不表明整体带宽使用量正在下降。相反，这些图表得出的结论是带宽增长速度正在放缓。

Let’s start with mobile data. Between 2015 and 2023, there’s a consistent decline in bandwidth growth of some 6 percent per year. The overall trend is a little harder to interpret in landline bandwidth data, because there’s a large COVID-related peak in 2020 and 2021. But even after accounting for this entirely understandable anomaly, the trend is that home and office broadband growth fell on average by around 3 percent per year between 2015 and 2023.
首先是移动数据。从 2015 年到 2023 年，带宽增长率持续下降，每年下降约 6%。座机带宽数据的整体趋势较难解释，因为在 2020 年和 2021 年会出现一个与 COVID 相关的巨大峰值。但即使考虑到这一完全可以理解的异常现象，2015 年至 2023 年间，家庭和办公室宽带增长的趋势仍是平均每年下降约 3%。

Extrapolating the trends from both of these curves leads to the ultimate conclusion that data growth should ultimately fall to zero or at least a negligibly small number by around 2027.
根据这两条曲线的趋势进行推断，最终得出的结论是，到 2027 年左右，数据增长应最终降至零，或至少是一个可以忽略不计的小数字。

This is an unpopular conclusion. It runs contrary to the persistent drumbeat of a many-Gb/s future that telecom “experts” have been claiming for years. For example, in November 2023 the Biden White House published its spectrum strategy, which states, “According to one estimate, data traffic on macro cellular networks is expected to increase by over 250 percent in the next 5 years, and over 500 percent in the next 10 years.”
这是一个不受欢迎的结论。它与电信 "专家 "多年来一直宣称的未来将达到每秒多千兆比特的鼓噪声背道而驰。例如，2023 年 11 月，拜登白宫公布了其频谱战略，其中指出："根据一项估计，宏蜂窝网络的数据流量预计将在未来 5 年内增长 250%以上，在未来 10 年内增长 500%以上。

Additionally, the Stockholm-based telecom company Ericsson recently predicted near-term “surge[s] in mobile data traffic.” And the United Kingdom’s telecommunications regulator, Ofcom forecast a bandwidth growth-rate of 40 percent for the foreseeable future.
此外，总部位于斯德哥尔摩的爱立信电信公司最近预测，近期 "移动数据流量将激增"。英国电信监管机构 Ofcom 预测，在可预见的未来，带宽增长率将达到 40%。

But, as shown in the charts here, many mobile and Internet users in the developed world seem to be accessing all the bandwidth they need. Data rates are no longer the constraining and determinative factor that they used to be.
但是，如图表所示，发达国家的许多移动和互联网用户似乎都能获得所需的全部带宽。数据传输速率已不再是过去的限制性和决定性因素。

The need to continue developing faster and bigger networks may therefore be overplayed today. That chapter of the Internet’s history is arguably now over, or it soon will be.
因此，继续发展更快、更大的网络的必要性在今天可能已经被夸大了。可以说，互联网历史的这一篇章已经结束，或者很快就会结束。

The Telecom Industry Will Be Shifting Gears, Too
电信业也将换挡

The implications of having enough coverage and bandwidth are most obvious in the equipment-supply industry.
足够的覆盖范围和带宽对设备供应行业的影响最为明显。

Major network suppliers may need to become accustomed to the new reality of data rates leveling out. Are Ericsson’s and Nokia’srecent layoffs and the bankruptcies of smaller suppliers (such as Airspan Networks) a harbinger of what’s coming for telecom markets?
主要网络供应商可能需要适应数据速率趋于平稳的新现实。爱立信和诺基亚最近的裁员以及较小供应商（如 Airspan Networks）的破产是否预示着电信市场的未来？

Operators are already investing less in 5G equipment and are likely already close to “maintenance only” spending. Most mobile and fixed operators have not seen revenue growth above inflation for many years but hold out hope that somehow this will turn around. Perhaps, though, if the numbers referenced here are to be believed, that turnaround isn’t coming.
运营商对 5G 设备的投资已经减少，很可能已经接近 "仅维护 "支出。大多数移动和固定运营商的收入增长已多年未超过通胀率，但他们仍对扭转这一局面抱有希望。不过，如果这里提到的数字可信的话，也许转机不会到来。

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Telecommunications has historically been a high-growth industry, but current trends suggest it’s heading toward something more static—more like a public utility, where in this case the public good is delivering data connectivity reliably. Extrapolating these trends, equipment suppliers won’t need to invest as much on bandwidth expansion but instead will focus on improving the margins on existing lines of products.
电信业历来是一个高速增长的行业，但目前的趋势表明，它正朝着更加静态的方向发展--更像一个公共事业，在这种情况下，公共利益就是可靠地提供数据连接。根据这些趋势推断，设备供应商将不需要在带宽扩展方面进行大量投资，而将专注于提高现有产品线的利润率。

Some degree of bandwidth expansion for 6G networks will still be necessary. The metaverse example above suggests a range of “ceiling heights” in the maximum Gb/s that users will demand in the years ahead. For most, 1 Gb/s still appears to be more than enough. For those who use high-end applications like future immersive virtual worlds, perhaps that ceiling is closer to 5 Gb/s. But concentrating research efforts on 6G deployments that can deliver 10 Gb/s and higher for everyone appears not to be grounded in any currently imaginable consumer technologies.
6G 网络仍然需要一定程度的带宽扩展。上述元宇宙示例表明，未来几年用户对最大千兆比特/秒带宽的需求将有不同的 "上限高度"。对于大多数人来说，1 Gb/s 似乎仍然绰绰有余。对于那些使用高端应用（如未来的沉浸式虚拟世界）的用户来说，最高速率可能接近 5 Gb/s。但是，将研究重点放在为每个人提供 10 Gb/s 或更高速率的 6G 部署上，似乎并不符合目前可以想象的任何消费技术。

To adjust to a potential new reality of operating their wireless networks at closer to utility-like or commodity-like terms, many telecom companies may face a future of restructuring and cost cutting. A useful analogy here are budget airlines, which thrive because most consumers select their airfare on the basis of cost. Similarly, the way for future telecom companies to win a larger share of the customer base may be increasingly dictated not by technological innovation but by price and customer service.
为了适应以更接近公用事业或商品的条件运营无线网络的潜在新现实，许多电信公司未来可能面临重组和成本削减。廉价航空公司就是一个很好的比喻，因为大多数消费者在选择机票时都会考虑成本。同样，未来的电信公司要想赢得更大份额的客户群，可能越来越多地不是取决于技术创新，而是取决于价格和客户服务。

To be clear, the need for new telecom research will continue. But with bandwidth expansion deprioritized, other innovations will certainly include cheaper and more efficient or more reliable ways to deliver existing services.
显然，对新电信研究的需求将继续存在。但是，随着带宽扩展被列为优先事项，其他创新必将包括以更便宜、更高效或更可靠的方式提供现有服务。

If consumer demand for ever more mobile data continues to dry up, regulators would no longer need to find new spectrum bands for cellular every few years and then conduct auctions. Indeed, the demand for spectrum may abate across most areas. Regulators may also have to consider whether fewer operators may be better for a country, with perhaps only a single underlying fixed and mobile network in many places—just as utilities for electricity, water, gas, and the like are often structured around single (or a limited set of) operators.
如果消费者对更多移动数据的需求持续萎缩，监管机构就不再需要每隔几年就为蜂窝网络寻找新的频谱带，然后进行拍卖。事实上，大多数地区对频谱的需求可能会减弱。监管机构可能还必须考虑，对于一个国家来说，运营商数量越少是否越好，也许在许多地方只有单一的基础固定和移动网络--就像电力、供水、供气等公用事业通常是围绕单一（或有限的一组）运营商构建的一样。

Finally, politicians will need to rethink their desire to be at the forefront of metrics such as homes connected by fiber, 5G deployment, or national leadership in 6G. That’s a bit like wanting to be top of the league for the number of Ferraris per capita. Instead, the number of homes with sufficient connectivity and percentage of the country covered by 10 Mb/s mobile may be better metrics to pursue as policy goals.
最后，政治家们需要重新思考他们在光纤连接家庭、5G 部署或 6G 国家领导地位等指标上走在前列的愿望。这有点像希望在人均法拉利数量上名列前茅。相反，拥有足够连接能力的家庭数量和 10 Mb/s 移动通信覆盖全国的百分比可能是更好的政策目标。

Another area of research will surely involve widening coverage in underserved areas and regions of the world—while still keeping costs low with more environmentally friendly solutions. Outside of urban areas, broadband is sometimes slow, with mobile connectivity nonexistent. Even urban areas contain so-called not-spots, while indoor coverage can be particularly problematic, especially when the building is clad with materials that are near-impenetrable to radio waves.
另一个研究领域必将涉及扩大世界上服务不足地区和区域的覆盖范围--同时以更环保的解决方案保持低成本。在城市以外的地区，宽带速度有时很慢，移动连接也不存在。即使是城市地区也存在所谓的 "非热点"，而室内覆盖可能尤其成问题，特别是当建筑物的外层材料几乎无法穿透无线电波时。

Broadly, there are two main ways for telecoms to shore up the current digital divide. The first is regulatory. Government funding, whether through new regulation and existing grants already on the books, can go to telecom providers in many regions that have been identified for broadband expansion. Indirect sources of funding should not be overlooked either—for instance, to allow operators to retain radio-spectrum license fees and without paying auction fees.
大致说来，电信公司有两种主要方法来弥补目前的数字鸿沟。首先是监管。政府可以通过新的法规和现有的拨款，向许多被确定为宽带扩展地区的电信运营商提供资金。间接资金来源也不容忽视--例如，允许运营商保留无线电频谱许可费，而无需支付拍卖费。

The second component is technological. Lower-cost rural telecom deployments could include satellite Internet deployments. Better indoor coverage can happen via private 5G networks or through improved access to existing and enhanced Wi-Fi.
第二个组成部分是技术。成本较低的农村电信部署可包括卫星互联网部署。通过专用 5G 网络或通过改善现有和增强型 Wi-Fi 的接入，可以实现更好的室内覆盖。

The above scenarios represent a major change of direction—from an industry built around innovating a new mobile generation every decade toward an industry focused on delivering lower prices and increased reliability. The coming 6G age might not be what telecom forecasters imagine. Its dawn may not herald a bold summit push toward 10 Gb/s and beyond. Instead, the 6G age could usher in something closer to an adjustment period, with the greatest opportunities for those who best understand how to benefit from the end of the era of rapid bandwidth growth in telecom history.
上述情景代表着一个重大的方向变化--从一个每十年创新一代新移动通信产品的行业，转变为一个专注于提供更低价格和更高可靠性的行业。即将到来的 6G 时代可能并非电信预测者所想象的那样。它的到来可能并不会预示着一场大胆的峰会，推动网络速度达到 10 Gb/s，甚至更高。相反，6G 时代可能会迎来一个更接近于调整期的时期，那些最了解如何从电信史上带宽快速增长时代的终结中获益的人将获得最大的机遇。

This article appears in the March 2025 print issue as “Rethinking 6G.”
本文作为 "反思 6G "刊登于 2025 年 3 月印刷版。