Future Scenarios and Anticipated Impacts of 6G

Abstract

This chapter examines future scenarios of 6G at different levels of analysis. The chapter starts by identifying and assessing key change political, environmental, social, technological, and legal forces-trends and uncertainties-related to future mobile communications and proposes a set of dimensions according to which we may expect 6G to change the world. Based on the proposed dimension, the chapter presents a set of future scenarios related to mobile connectivity integrated with various services at the user (humans and machines), business (service provisioning and utilization), business ecosystem value chain (upstream and downstream), and geopolitical levels of analysis. The chapter concludes by presenting the future of mobile connectivity and its potential outcomes at the societal level.