Transforming the Internet With 6G: Towards Architectural Extensibility

G is envisioned to be substantially more than just a next-generation wireless communication technology. It is thought of as a universal intelligent fabric that will have a transformative effect on societal structure, empowering the emergence of smart societies. A massive deployment of the new technology at the very edge of the network provides a limited, yet unique opportunity for the evolution of the Internet itself. In this paper, we aim to identify how the impact of a wide-scale 6G deployment can affect the Internet's architecture, which has a long time been criticized for its ossified state. To take advantage of this chance, careful consideration must be taken at an early stage of the 6G infrastructure design. We investigate how to implement extensibility in 6G to enable deployment and proliferation of what essentially is layer 3.5, and, eventually, unbuckle the thin waist of the Internet. Also, we examine what clean-slate internet architectures appear to be the most promising in conjunction with the massive renewal of the Internet's edge. Our paper serves as a call to action for making the Internet future-ready as 6G reshapes its edge.