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How did we reach the point at which 5G could be realized, via what is effectively a single body that represents global mobile standards, and which has become the preeminent voice in the industry? Historically, this was not the case for each previous generation of mobile technology.

There have been a number of successful standardization initiatives that have resulted in the release of each new generation of mobile technology – 2G, 3G, 4G, and, more recently, 5G. However, there has often been debate about how each such generation should be realized, which has led to variation in the implementation of some previous “Gs” and the emergence of parallel standards that have aimed to deliver the same outcome. In this section, we will briefly review current activities and explore previous approaches.

For a number of years, each new “G” has begun with the release of what is known as an “International Mobile Telecommunications” (IMT) recommendation. IMTs are defined by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialist agency of the United Nations. It is important to note that an IMT is simply a recommendation. It does not define how it should be realized, but it does define expected performance levels:

The term International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) is the generic term used by the ITU community to designate broadband mobile systems. It encompasses IMT‐2000, IMT‐Advanced and IMT‐2020 collectively, [2].

At the ITU, work is already underway toward 6G under the overall banner of IMT‐2030. Stakeholders such as solution vendors, operators, research institutions, and other agencies are collaborating to define 6G and what it may mean in practice. As part of these activities, FG‐30 (Focus Group on Technologies for Network 2030) is creating a definition of what a 6G network should deliver:

The Focus Group intends to study the capabilities of networks for the year 2030 and beyond, when it is expected to support novel forward‐looking scenarios…The study aims to answer specific questions on what kinds of network architecture and the enabling mechanisms suitable for such novel scenarios [3].

This will eventually result in a new IMT requirements definition, which will be available for the industry.