Uncle Sam needs you to fight for 6G leadership and security, lest Beijing get there first

America wants its allies to come together and help it lead the way in defining 6G communications standards, with security and resilience seen as key goals for next-generation networks. The latest effort to corral international work on 6G comes from the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which …

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

working now with trusted partners

2 cups and a piece of string should suffice

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: working now with trusted partners

Can a piece of string be stretched all the way from DC to the Kremlin?

[Charlie Clark]

Re: working now with trusted partners

No, you need carrier pigeons like Speckled Jim for that!

[MachDiamond]

Re: working now with trusted partners

"No, you need carrier pigeons"

The pigeon, Mensel. You didn't forget the pigeon did you?

(maybe a wee bit obscure).

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: working now with trusted partners

If you'll excuse me, I'm off to catch the pigeon.

[that one in the corner]

Re: working now with trusted partners

"Muuutttleyyyyy"

"Gime gimme gimme"

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: working now with trusted partners

SPECKLED JIM!?!?!?!

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: working now with trusted partners

No, you need carrier pigeons like Speckled Jim for that!

Such a fine, plump bird.

Or was. Opps.

:-)

[Paul Herber]

Re: working now with trusted partners

Wet string? Luxury!

[Sproggit]

Let me get this Right...

... President Trump has attacked...

NATO members, for failing to provide military support for his war against Iran (despite the fact that the US didn't invoke Article 5)...

Allies the world over, with unprovoked and unjustified tariffs, which he then diverts from the Treasury general fund to pay for e.g. expansion of ICE...

The European Union - both collectively and individually...

,,, and he continues to support the US veto of International Tax Agreements that would curb the excessive "profit shopping" that huge US multinationals use to spirit billions of dollars out of the economies of other nations without paying tax...

And he wants all those nations that he has been attacking and harming to join him and develop 6G so that the US can spy on allies rather than allowing China to spy on them?

Yes, yes, I can see how this would be an extremely popular move.

Snort.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Let me get this Right...

>despite the fact that the US didn't invoke Article 5

Because you can't call on a defensive alliance to support your foreign wars. This was a US demand at the creation of NATO because they didn't want to be involved in every British and French imperial adventure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Let me get this Right...

Not forgetting that the US just voted with Russia and North Korea on shafting the current UN Human Rights big cheese.

TBH I'd feel safer with China right now. At least their tech is less prone to proprietary lock-in.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: Let me get this Right... the Mad Emperor with No Clothes wants to be a Model Icon?

Here are words on similar shenanigans from Uncle Sam, and resultant consequences for Uncle Sam, on another pressing matter for wannabe winners and don’t wannabe losers alike ......

amanfromMars [2607281320] asks on https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/new-british-defense-secretary-says-europe-shaken-out-complacency-trump

Does Wes Streeting mean, whenever he says ......“when this period of history is written, Europe will thank President Trump for shaking us out of our complacency and forcing us to stand on our own two feet and end the period of overreliance on the United States for defense.”  ...... that standing on our own two feet has Great Britain and Europe not buying foreign and/or American kit and weapons and supporting their crazy wars and part-timer allies using their national defence budgets???? 

Any bets defending and against Wes Streeting only politically inept grandstanding and pontificating???

[Roland6]

Re: Let me get this Right...

>”... President Trump has attacked...

NATO members, for failing to provide military support for his war against Iran (despite the fact that the US didn't invoke Article 5)...”

More importantly, despite the US didn’t ask its allies to join it before it attacked Iran, because it didn’t trust them not to have leaky walls, and Trump himself saying the US didn’t need the help of its allies especially GB…

>” And he wants all those nations that he has been attacking and harming to join him and develop 6G…”

This is a land grab by Trump, attempting to effectively bring the 6G specification under US government control. I would not be surprised if Qualcomm et al, who got burnt by their inattention to GSM, 3G, are behind the scenes pushing for greater US involvement and control…

[Charlie Clark]

Pointless

China is already leading the way on LTE development but has also understood how to play the interoperability game with the rest of the world better than America ever has. Yes, with a large enough domestic market you can launch your own technologies on the world but adoption is unlikely. The problems with TV signals (NTSC, PAL, SECAM) led Europeans to understanding that only common standards would have a chance in the future and this was the reason for GSM, designed to get companies to work together. While various competing standards may initially have had advantages, over time it was GSM specifications that got the most traction with Japan, Korea and even America adopting them over time.

China understands committees and the needs for standards and has been a player from the start. It could choose to introduce something like CCCP (Chinese Communist Party Communications) and might be able to sell this to poorer countries with little international travel. But it's simply easier to bring specifications to the committee and win the race to implementation.

America's history in international standards business has, however, on the whole been miserable, with various companies championing various competing standards that they hope to enforce via patents on an unsuspecting world.

[martinusher]

Re: Pointless

American standards have also been abused by the US government by giving them grounds to control the flow of technology even if that technology didn't originate in the US. This has resulted in the past in standards being basically "not American", the most notable being the cipher used in AES. Many people don't realize that export of WiFi equipment from the US is restricted, you had to get an export license to sell the kit abroad because of the RC6 code used by WEP, and that it would only get granted for short key lengths. This might seem a bit silly since WEP is known to have about as much security as a piece of damp tissue paper but by the time this became obvious the US had ceased to make WiFi devices. Everyone else, though, was making and selling WiFi kit, it was just made and sold outside the reach of the US government so license restrictions are moot. The lesson, though, is still relevant -- if you allow the US government any leverage at all over any technology then they will use it, often to your detriment, so its best to develop global standards outside the US where they can be openly discussed, agreed to and implemented.

In this case we're seeing a desperate attempt to lock the Chinese out of 6G, returning control to the US in the process. The US got blindsided over 5G; everyone was making so much money out of 4G that they were not putting the investment into 5G. The standards got finalized with US chip manufacturers caught wrong footed so they did what comes naturally to them -- use their leverage in Congress to institute a ban on Chinese flagship technology companies (primarily Huawei). At the same time local carriers started putting out a half assed ("interim") version of 5G and everyone started talking up 6G which was, naturally, going to be far superior to 5G (and, anyway, you just cant trust those Chinese). Hopefully "the world" isn't going to fall for this trick. Standards are standards and if US companies have something meaningful to contribute, great. If all they're interested in is control then they deserve to be ignored.

[Roland6]

Re: Pointless

The same principles apply to FOSS, if you really believe in the GPL you will HQ your project outside of the US and adopt mechanisms that mean no code originating from US sources gets directly added to the project’s code-base. Lesson learnt from the fight for public and unencumbered encryption software a few decades back…

[Anonymous Coward]

6G Is A Money Ramp for Apple and Samsung..........

Why? Because it will force most users to BUY NEW STUFF!

New mobile network equipment....

New "smart" phones......

...and probably a ramp for Huawei as well!

Enjoy!!......more money siphoned from every citizen's pocket:

- new phones

- higher phone bills

Just ask yourself: Who ACTUALLY needs this cycle of re-equipment? Not me!

Why do we put up with this?

Sigh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 6G Is A Money Ramp for Apple and Samsung..........

See: https://s3.eu-central-2.wasabisys.com/mastodonworld/media_attachments/files/116/996/537/148/900/733/original/31afa9c7d07d5a3b.jpg

[Tron]

Re: 6G Is A Money Ramp for Apple and Samsung..........

I'm staying on 4G until they turn the masts off. Then I'll be on 5G until they turn the masts off.

I may well have expired before 5G is turned off. When, no doubt, the politards will be arguing about 8G. It's just another way of forcing people to buy stuff.

[DS999]

It doesn't force ANYONE to buy new stuff

6G doesn't make 5G stop working anymore than 5G made LTE stop working. In fact, 5G has a built in coexistence mode with LTE that can dynamically allocate portions of spectrum for LTE devices as needed and use the rest for 5G. So there will be little incentive to shut off LTE the way they have 2G/3G.

By the time someone wants to shut down LTE due to almost no use making it pointless (probably 2040 or later) all the pre 5G smartphones and other consumer equipment will have long been retired.

I'm not convinced 6G ever penetrates consumer consciousness. The reason people were eager to upgrade to an LTE phone and then a 5G phone was because they were in slow overcongested cells. Those are becoming less and less common. People who don't see slow cellular speeds are not going to buy a new phone no matter how fast it promises to make your cellular. Same reason people on gigabit fiber at home aren't clamoring for 10 gigabit fiber.

6G might even end up being stillborn, the way 450mm wafers for fabs were - too costly with too few players willing to front the cost. Which I guess is why industry is trying to scare governments into kicking in some cash. We might see incremental updates to 5G instead. Anything people care about from 6G like better latency could be delivered in a 5G Advanced or 5.1G or whatever they want to call it.

[Roland6]

Re: It doesn't force ANYONE to buy new stuff

>” 6G doesn't make 5G stop working anymore than 5G made LTE stop working.”

My ancient 4G LTE handset would like to disagree, although I suspect the marketeers will regard the ability to send and receive SMS messages as still working…

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It doesn't force ANYONE to buy new stuff

@DS999

Quote: "It doesn't force ANYONE to buy new stuff"

Really?? On a recent trip to the USA my 4G phone worked PERFECTLY WELL in the mid-west.

......but in New York the only service available was 5G!

Yup.......when the NETWORK PROVIDERS rip out 5G.......EVERYONE will be forced to buy in to 6G!

Sigh!

[Like a badger]

Re: It doesn't force ANYONE to buy new stuff

"because they were in slow overcongested cells. Those are becoming less and less common"

Not in the UK. Our network coverage is poor despite generally favourable terrain. Spent a few days in Norway, and 5G offered near universal coverage of anywhere I could get in less than a day's hike from a road, and coverage extended all the way through some very long road tunnels. Come back to Blighty and it's back to notspots and network congestion.

Unfortunately, our proletariat are not very savvy, and will suck up whatever marketing lies the networks offer about 6G (as an when available) and continue to buy advanced technology that won't fix the problems of the previous generation.

[Tron]

Re: It doesn't force ANYONE to buy new stuff

My 4G is usually OK but didn't work at all in Hull city centre. The hospital had removed all the payphones, but had a public landline near the entrance that connected to a local taxi firm. Worth knowing if you get stuck there. Every technological development seems to reduce our resilience.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: It doesn't force ANYONE to buy new stuff

Unfortunately, our proletariat are not very savvy

In other news, the sun is described as "warm" and water as "moist"..

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

Already too late.

Again.

America hasn't "led" the world for some time now. China has outpaced them on development, research, and production, and the disparity is only going to get worse with the budget and education cutback Der Pumpkin Fuhrer imposed on American society.

You are not going to resume leading the world when your average voter has a Grade 4 education nowadays in reality when they aren't being given a "pass" just for showing up.

[You aint sin me, roit]

It's not just the education levels, it's the whole industrial strategy.

Huawei pump billions into R&D every year, funding international cooperation (and obviously buying an advantageous position) in all kinds of standards bodies.

Meanwhile US companies are pumping billions into executive "compensation". US capitalism is struggling to keep up because it has come up against a competitor that has a long term strategy that doesn't just involve boosting the share price to keep the shareholders happy and bump up the CEO's bonus.

[Anonymous Coward]

Industrial Strategy

@You_aint_sin_me,_roit

I'm minded to remind readers that in Western Democracies, "strategy" has a sell by date four or five years in the future!

Now.......it's pretty clear that the Chinese political system is not to everyone's taste (!)........but a lack of a LONG TERM STRATEGY is not one of its defects!

[James 139]

Part of that is because the US spends a lot of it's time telling itself that it's "the greatest nation on Earth" etc, despite being worse at an awful lot of things, possibly almost everything.

[MachDiamond]

Winning at anything

There seems to be a disease circulating around DC where it's important to "win" everything. Even when "winning" isn't a word or concept that fits.

Apple isn't out to "win" the AI "war". They might be letting others break trail so they can plant their flag once the summit has been conquered (or found). If I want to go out and make some nice photos, it's easier if I go to a place where others have found nice landscapes rather than spending my summer not bathing, getting eaten by bugs and having bears rummage through my food bag to stumble upon un-spoiled vistas.

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

Re: Winning at anything

I'm reminded of Charlie Sheen's idea of "winning" his way into rehab...

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Winning at anything

Apple isn't out to "win" the AI "war"

The general Apple strategy (with some exceptions) is to wait for new stuff to come out and wait to see if a market develops. Then produce devices/software that extends that device/service into becoming more attractive.

So the iPhone 3G didn't do anything particularly revolutionary - it took a bunch of existing ideas (from lots of sources) and packaged them together well to build an ecosystem. App stores? Already existed. Phones with a GUI? Already a Thing.

Combine them with a heavily customised version of their existing OS, in well-designed hardware and advertise them, mocking the existing sort-of-incumbents. Then sit back and wait for the cash to roll in :-)

Of course, there was lots of stuff backing the iPhone 3G up - logistics, manufacturing to time and quality (even if outsourced), management round the app store etc etc. But without the device succeeding it would all have been for naught.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Winning at anything

"Combine them with a heavily customised version of their existing OS, in well-designed hardware and advertise them,"

I've liked Apple's UI for ages. They may have "borrowed" ideas from elsewhere, but they filed off the rough edges along with the serial numbers when they did. I'm working on a project right now with some online software and it's painful due to their horrible interface. The output is very good, but getting there without spending every day working with it takes too much time.

The walled garden is a completely different discussion and a reason I don't have an iPhone.

[Doctor Syntax]

"America wants its allies"

America famously doesn't have allies, only interests.

To the extent that it might have conned other countries into thinking they were allies it has spent the last few years assiduously undoing that.

[xyz123]

4G less range than 3G

5G less range than 4G

6G less range than 5G to contact someone you have to actually insert your phone deep inside their ass.

7G. You have to break into the other persons soul to leave a text message.

[MachDiamond]

"4G less range than 3G

5G less range than 4G

6G less range than 5G "

Yes, but each increase in frequency leads to greater bandwidth so people can dive further into their phones past neck deep. TANSTAAFL, so range decreases and more towers must be built.

I don't find 5G makes a big difference. Where I have 5G, there must be more users as I get slower data transfer speeds. I don't use data that much on the phone so my point cloud is rather thin.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck yeah, I'm in...who has the money? There is no money? Aii...imma bounce.

The only way the West stays ahead of China is to realise that they need to actually pay people and spend money.

As much as I'd love the ability to be able to pull finished products out of my arse made out of thin air on demand, it's not going to happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

Europe should pull together on this

Just leave the US out; they can buy the tech once it is ready.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Europe should pull together on this

That would be great, but Europe only knows how to set up massive committees and working groups...nothing ever actually gets done collaboratively.

[EdSaxby]

Winning stratgey?

Now, let me see.

Let's denigrate and defund science and education.

Let's treat foreign talent coming to your country as undesirables.

Let's close off your tech market on national secuirty grounds.

Let's treat your allies who have technology-strengths as enemies.

Yup, this strategy is going to work!

[MachDiamond]

Re: Winning stratgey?

"Let's treat foreign talent coming to your country as undesirables."

If you read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes, he writes about how some scientists were trying to find places for Jewish scientists being kicked out of universities in Germany. It wasn't an easy task even though it would have been a boon to those other countries to host them at taxpayer expense until they could get settled, learn a new language, that sort of thing. Having Lise Meitner at Berkley or Oxford could have been amazing.

[has been]

So you want to develop the successor to 5G?

But you specifically don't want to include the world's largest telecoms manufacturers and the largest holders/developers of 5G ip to take part in the work?

You, sirs, are poltroons and fools.

Please FOAD yourselves and the horses you rode in on...