5G’s Report Card
Let’s start with where we actually are. 5G deployment has been massive and, depending on your expectations, either impressive or disappointing. According to the GSMA’s Mobile Economy 2025 report, there were approximately 2.1 billion 5G connections globally by the end of 2024, representing about 23% of all mobile connections. Ericsson’s Mobility Report puts 5G population coverage at roughly 50% globally, though that number obscures vast regional disparities.
The “killer app” for 5G, it turns out, isn’t holographic calls or remote surgery — it’s faster Netflix on your phone and fixed wireless access (FWA) for home internet. T-Mobile alone has added over 4 million FWA customers using 5G infrastructure. It’s boring, but it’s real: 5G is competing with cable and fiber for home broadband in ways 4G never could.
The industrial IoT revolution that 5G was supposed to enable? It’s happening, just slowly. Private 5G networks are deployed in about 2,500 factories, ports, and mines worldwide, according to the GSA. That’s real but modest. The technology works — ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) delivers sub-5ms latency in controlled environments — but the business case for ripping out existing industrial Ethernet and replacing it with 5G is not yet compelling for most use cases.
5G-Advanced: The Missing Piece
Buried in the 3GPP Release 18 specifications (finalized in mid-2024) is something called 5G-Advanced. It’s the bridge between initial 5G and future 6G, and it includes genuinely useful improvements: AI-powered network optimization, enhanced positioning accuracy (sub-meter), extended reality (XR) optimizations, and reduced capability (RedCap) for low-power IoT devices.
The positioning piece is particularly interesting. 5G-Advanced can determine a device’s location with centimeter-level accuracy without GPS, using the cellular signal itself. For factory automation, autonomous vehicles, and indoor navigation where GPS doesn’t work, this matters.
Carrier aggregation improvements in 5G-Advanced will push theoretical download speeds past 10 Gbps, though real-world speeds will be a fraction of that. More importantly, uplink improvements will make a real difference for applications like live video streaming from phones and industrial cameras.
6G: What’s on the Drawing Board
6G research is well underway, targeting commercial deployment around 2030. The ITU has published its IMT-2030 framework, and 3GPP is expected to begin 6G specifications around 2025-2026 with Release 21. Here’s what the research community is actually working on:
Terahertz communication: 6G will use spectrum from 100 GHz to potentially 3 THz, compared to 5G’s sub-6 GHz and millimeter wave (24-100 GHz). Terahertz waves can carry enormous bandwidth — theoretical data rates exceed 1 terabit per second — but they’re absorbed by air molecules and can’t penetrate walls. Use cases are limited to fixed wireless and very short-range applications.
Sub-THz spectrum: The 92-300 GHz range is more practical and is where most 6G research is focused. Japan’s NTT Docomo and South Korea’s Samsung have demonstrated data rates exceeding 100 Gbps at 100 GHz over hundreds of meters in outdoor tests. Whether this translates to commercial viability is an open question.
Sensing and communication integration: 6G won’t just transmit data — it will use the same radio waves to sense the environment. Imagine a base station that can detect a pedestrian approaching an intersection, or a drone that can simultaneously communicate and map its surroundings. This “Integrated Sensing and Communication” (ISAC) is being standardized in 3GPP Release 19.
AI-native networks: 5G uses AI as an optimization tool. 6G is being designed with AI as a fundamental architectural component, from the physical layer up. Nokia, Ericsson, and Samsung are all working on AI-based channel estimation, beamforming, and resource allocation that could dramatically improve spectral efficiency.
Spectrum Battles
The tricky part of 6G isn’t the technology — it’s the politics of radio spectrum. Every megahertz of spectrum has existing users — military radar, weather satellites, radio astronomy — who don’t want to share. The World Radiocommunication Conference 2027 (WRC-27) will make critical decisions about which bands are allocated for 6G. The outcome will shape the technology more than any engineering breakthrough.
China, South Korea, and Japan are racing to secure leadership positions. China’s IMT-2030 promotion group involves all three state-owned telecom operators plus Huawei and ZTE. South Korea aims to be first again — they launched the world’s first 5G network in 2019 and want the same for 6G, targeting preliminary deployment by 2028.
What Actually Matters
The honest take: for most users, the difference between good 5G and 6G will be imperceptible. Your cat video will load before your thumb finishes the swipe either way. But for industrial automation, autonomous systems, and closing the digital divide in rural areas with better fixed wireless, 6G might actually matter. The real value of 6G will be in the infrastructure it enables, not the download speed number on a speed test.