MWC Conversation with Ericsson Executive: 6G Standard Set for 2029, "Killer Applications" May Appear by 2032

Phoenix Satellite Television Tech (author/Yu Lei, Liu Yukun) On March 5, during the 2026 World Mobile Communications Conference (MWC), Ericsson publicly disclosed its latest technology roadmap for the evolution from 5G-A to 6G. Magnus Ewerbring, Ericsson’s Global Head of Advanced Technologies and Chief Technology Officer for the Asia Pacific region, and Wu Lidoong, Vice President for Northeast Asia, accepted interviews with media outlets including Phoenix Satellite Television Tech and provided focused responses on topics such as the 6G standards timeline, AI network convergence, and spectrum sharing. The communications industry is currently facing a reconstruction of growth logic, and finding new monetization models has become the focus of network deployment.

Regarding the evolution milestones that industry insiders are concerned about, Magnus Ewerbring made a clear prediction that the 6G standards led by 3GPP will be officially released in early 2029. Based on this timeline, the first batch of 6G hardware devices are expected to hit the market in the second half of 2029, and scale up commercial use in 2030. He particularly emphasized that, drawing on prior experience, the initial deployment of 6G must directly adopt the SA (Standalone) architecture to ensure the complete delivery of network performance. In addition, due to the long-cycle nature of communications technologies, 5G is expected to become the technology with the largest global subscription base only in its eighth year of development, in 2027. This also means that 6G will similarly need to go through an extended market nurturing phase.

As for the emergence cycle of “killer apps” in the 6G era, Ericsson believes this will gradually become visible as terminal hardware iterates. The market will still be dominated by 5G before 2030; however, by 2032, thanks to 6G’s ultra-low latency characteristics, terminals such as XR glasses that meet real-time augmented reality needs are expected to see large-scale adoption. At the same time, sensing (ISAC) technology will achieve a smooth transition to 6G and strengthen its functions. On the network architecture level, the mobile direct satellite (D2D) technology will be formally written into the 6G standards to be released in 2029. As a supplement to terrestrial cellular networks, satellite communications will mainly shoulder signal coverage tasks for remote and sparsely populated areas.

On the core issue of deployment costs, Ericsson presented MRSS (Multi-Format Radio Spectrum Sharing) technology jointly developed with companies such as Apple and MediaTek. The solution enables operators to achieve coexistence of 5G and 6G networks on existing frequency bands. By reusing existing spectrum resources, operators do not need to allocate or bid on new spectrum bands exclusively for initial 6G networks, thereby significantly reducing capital expenditures at the 6G entry stage and enabling a smooth cross-generational transition.

Exploring new profit models across industries is another key focus at this stage, and network slicing and Network API are viewed as foundational support. In terms of scenario deployment, Sony demonstrated how to call Network API through a camera built with a 5G communication card to quickly and reliably transmit high-spec images. C3.AI also showed on-site engineers using intelligent terminals combined with a slicing network response service to meet demand. Wu Lidoong mentioned that, with the help of AI glasses, hands-free repair operations rely heavily on the coordination of slicing and APIs.

In addition, alongside applications of generative AI, Ericsson proposed the “Intelligent Fabric” concept, driving the evolution of communication networks toward smart agents with autonomous reasoning capabilities. Its newly launched chip set already has the ability to interact directly with base stations at the signal reception end through AI. During this global technology testing and deployment validation, China market continues to serve as the core base to feed back its global R&D closed-loop, owing to its first-mover advantages in 5G and its high level of acceptance.