Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced Monday night Canada has joined nine other nations in endorsing a joint statement of principles for 6G, the next generation of wireless technologies.
“These shared principles for the research and development of 6G wireless communication systems will support open, free, global, interoperable, reliable, resilient, and secure connectivity,” a press release from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada said.
In addition to Canada, the countries endorsing the shared principles include the United States, Australia, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
“Canadians depend on telecommunications services being reliable and secure every day, whether for personal connectivity or the digital economy. Our government has endorsed these shared principles for 6G so that Canadians can continue to benefit from the latest wireless technologies. We look forward to working together with our international partners and industry to ensure wireless communications are secure and reliable in Canada and around the world,” Champagne said in a statement.
Next-generation 6G technologies are expected to be significantly faster than current technologies, while enabling new applications that harness the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and augmented reality.
Under their joint statement of principles, the countries have agreed to adopt relevant policies and to advance research and development and standardization of 6G networks that use 6G technologies that are:
- supported by secure and resilient technology as part of a wider secure trusted communications ecosystem, facilitating participating partners’ ability to protect national security;
- developed by organizations that have systematic approaches to cybersecurity, including through the use of technical standards, interfaces and specifications, approaches such as security-by-design able to ensure the availability of essential services, and systems designed to fail safely and recover quickly;
- reliable, resilient, safe and protect the privacy of individuals; and
- provide a high level of security on communication networks, including by mitigating potential risks posed by greater network complexity or larger attack surfaces.
In addition, the global partners are endorsing the development of 6G technologies built on global standards, interfaces and specifications that: are developed through open, transparent, impartial and consensus-based decision-making processes; respect intellectual property rights; promote sustainability, accessibility, inclusive participation, interoperability, competitiveness, openness and security; and enable seamless interoperability between products from different suppliers, including software and hardware.
Other shared principles include the development of 6G technologies that: leverage innovative technologies such as virtualization, software-defined networking and artificial intelligence; allow for energy-efficient deployments and operation; promote digital transformation; are widely available and accessible to developing nations; leverage non-terrestrial networks such as satellite and High-Altitude Platform Station (HAPS); have secure and resilient supply chains; promote a globally competitive market along the information and communication technology value chain, with multiple software and hardware suppliers; can make use of new spectrum allocations or spectrum that has already been allocated for wireless services; and use spectrum efficiently and incorporate spectrum sharing mechanisms by design to coexist with incumbent service providers.
Canada’s endorsement of the joint principles for 6G builds on its work under the Telecommunications Reliability Agenda, a set of actions to improve telecommunications reliability and better protect Canadians, ISED’s press release said. It also builds on Canada’s international cooperation under the Global Coalition on Telecommunications, the Prague Proposals on Telecommunications Supplier Diversity, and the U.K.’s Open RAN Principles, which Canada endorsed in 2022, ISED said.
Screenshot of Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne.
