Complementarities and Externalities in 6G Platforms-Based Ecosystems

This paper explores benefits and potential failures associated with the complementarities and externalities of the emerging 6G platform-based ecosystem. Envisioned 6G general-purpose technology platform grounded on open architecture with application layer interfaces has the potential to create complementary opportunities for a rich developer community, increasing network value, revenue, and the user experience. While 6G platforms and ecosystems provide efficiency gains and means to cope with the externalities compared to traditional contracting and vertical integration they may also embed severe value architecture failures. In the functional value architecture failure, joint value creation, value proposition and innovation do not match with the available resources and capabilities offered by the actors. As a consequence of the distributional failure, value in platforms and ecosystems is not captured proportional to the actor’s relational contribution. This paper identifies complementarities and externalities of platforms and ecosystems in 6G and characterized them from value creation and constraint perspectives. The main findings of the study highlight the ecosystem design principles related to exposure of 6G capabilities and recommend widening the 6G key values to consider the empowerment of the developers and users.