en.Wedoany.com Reported - Japan's 6G R&D is shifting from concept validation to engineering challenges focused on spectrum utilization and network control. On June 23, the project "R&D of Mobile Communication Networks Enabling Cross-Band Utilization," jointly promoted by NTT DOCOMO, NEC, 1FINITY, NTT, and Fujitsu, was selected for Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' "Radio Resource Expansion R&D" project, with a development period from 2026 to 2029.
This project targets the sixth-generation mobile communication system for the 2030s, focusing on issues such as multi-band coexistence, spectrum scarcity, network energy efficiency, and high-density deployment during the evolution from 5G to 6G. As mobile communications continue to advance from 5G-A to 6G, networks will no longer rely solely on single-band capacity expansion but will require dynamic coordination across low, mid, high, and even higher frequency bands, enabling intelligent allocation of different bands based on services, terminal status, and wireless environment changes.
The first technical direction of the project is network control based on advanced vRAN. The R&D team will utilize AI to analyze the communication environment and terminal status in real time, predict changes in communication quality over hundreds of milliseconds to several seconds, and perform optimal allocation across multiple frequency bands from low to high frequencies. vRAN transfers some base station functions to general-purpose servers and software platforms, enabling more flexible resource scheduling in the radio access network and laying the foundation for introducing AI-native control in future 6G networks.
The second technical direction is network construction aimed at spectrum-efficient utilization. The R&D team will develop small, low-power base station equipment supporting multiple frequency bands and study technologies for dynamically controlling high-frequency band usage via AI. The project will also explore flexible inter-base-station connections using wireless backhaul methods, balancing communication performance, deployment flexibility, and energy consumption control in high-density networking scenarios.
The industrial significance of this R&D lies in Japan's 6G roadmap placing "spectrum efficiency" and "network energy consumption" on equal footing. 6G is expected to support industrial intelligence, extended reality, the Internet of Vehicles, space-air-ground integrated communications, and AI edge services, but these applications require higher capacity, lower latency, and more stable connections. If networks continue to rely on traditional methods of stacking base stations and spectrum resources, operational costs and energy consumption pressures will rise simultaneously.
The combination of NTT DOCOMO, NEC, 1FINITY, NTT, and Fujitsu also reflects the collaborative logic of Japan's communication industry chain. Operators handle network requirements and application scenarios, equipment vendors and system companies undertake key roles in wireless access, vRAN, base station devices, interconnection, and software control, while the NTT group provides a long-term foundation for communication R&D. The joint participation of these five parties helps advance 6G key technologies from laboratory concepts to deployable network architectures.
Project outcomes will also be proposed to international standardization organizations. For 6G, those who can produce verifiable results early in spectrum scheduling, AI network control, low-power base stations, and multi-band integration will have a better chance of securing a position in subsequent standard setting and industrial deployment. By promoting collaboration among five companies through a government R&D project, Japan aims to connect 6G R&D with standard competition, industrial capabilities, and future network security infrastructure.
6G will not be merely a linear upgrade in speed from 5G; it will further integrate communication, computing, AI, and sensing capabilities. The cross-band mobile communication network R&D launched by Japan targets a threshold that must be crossed before 6G deployment: in a more complex spectrum environment, enabling the network to autonomously determine which frequency band to use, how to connect, and how to balance performance and energy consumption.
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