The US government wants 6G smartphones by 2028, there’s only one small problem

About 7 years have passed since the commercial 5G networks made their debut. Today this technology has reached full maturity, covering a large portion of the population.

While mobile operators begin implementing the 5G-Advanced standard, based on the technical recommendations of the Release 18 of the 3GPP consortium, the Trump administration is pressing the accelerator, imposing extremely tight timelines for the leap to the 6G networks of the future.

In 2028 the Olympics are in the USA, Trump wants to demonstrate 6G in operation

During a recent industry event organized by the Politico outlet, Nate Tibbit, senior vice president for global government affairs at Qualcomm, revealed Washington’s ambitious expectations regarding telecommunications development. The federal government intends to concretely accelerate the investment and deployment schedule.

The US administration explicitly asked that 6G technology be fully operational by 2029, adding an even more urgent caveat: companies of Qualcomm’s caliber will need to develop at least three commercial devices ready for the Los Angeles Summer Olympics of 2028.

The executive branch’s intent is clear and aims to use the global sporting event to demonstrate the technological and infrastructural superiority of the country.

A timetable difficult to meet

Developing three mass-market devices within such a tight timeframe represents a challenge of enormous proportions, especially for one very specific reason.

The very foundations of 6G are not yet written. The official technical specifications will need to be outlined within the Release 21 of the 3GPP, whose initial presentation is expected during 2028.

Even imagining that this deadline is met precisely, the process of approval and finalization of the protocols historically requires several additional months. Building working smartphones on infrastructure whose standardization has not been formally ratified will require an exceptional joint effort among lawmakers, regulatory bodies and hardware manufacturers.

The expected performance and the heart of the infrastructure

From a purely technical standpoint, the transition from 5G to 6G promises an unprecedented performance boost. The current 5G-Advanced focuses on completing standalone architectures and using higher frequencies to reach download speeds close to 10 Gbps.

Sixth-generation networks, instead, aim to push data transfer speeds to the order of terabits per second. In addition, there is the need to drive latency down to a few milliseconds and a strong integration of artificial intelligence for signal optimization.

Despite these premises, industry players still need to reach an agreement on the technical architecture to adopt.

On the one hand, some entities would like to reuse the current 5G-Advanced core network to save costs and shorten deployment times; on the other hand, Qualcomm argues the need to develop a completely new and lighter infrastructure, considered essential to guarantee the ultra-low latency required by the technical specifications.

It remains to be seen whether the telecommunications industries will manage to align in time to turn the government’s visions into functioning devices for the Los Angeles Summer Olympics.