The 6G Vision

In academia, researchers from the University of Oulu's Centre for Wireless Communications launched an eight‐year research program called 6G enabled smart society and ecosystem (6Genesis) to conceptualize 6G. The general evolution of global mobile network standards was first to maximize coverage in the first and second generations and then to maximize capacity in the third and fourth generations. 6G network architectures are anticipated to extend the 5G three‐tier space‐air‐ground networks by integrating underwater networks, thus giving rise to four‐tier space‐air‐ground‐underwater networks with near‐instant and unlimited superconnectivity in the sky, at sea, and on land. The importance of convergence of emerging key technologies, e.g. AI, robots, and extended reality, lies also at the heart of the 6G era with standards and enabled devices anticipated to roll out around 2030. This chapter also presents an overview of this book.