Panel Discussions

Sustainability has been established as a cornerstone of the 6G era. As investigations of 6G architecture are explored in various communities, energy and broader sustainability challenges have been identified. The use of virtualized platforms for Radio Access Network processing imply greater energy use, and more cloud platforms to be managed. The introduction of AI/ML everywhere in 6G suggests energy hungry computations, and specialized power hungry processors. What are the power sources of all these cloud platforms? Especially on a global basis, and with computing so widely distributed - not solely in giant well managed data centers. A longer term goal of 6G is communications everywhere, including various non-terrestrial networks. How will they affect global sustainability with airborne, non-satellite platforms? As we look at these future networks based around 6G and its successors we are faced with a paradox - we need these architectural and technical changes to bring greater function and benefit and sustainability, and yet the methods used may negatively affect sustainability. As a second perspective, 6G with its richer, more wide spread functionality can also help solve other sustainability issues as a tool. Consequently 6G may consume sustainable resources but also save more indirectly through its employment in new solutions. This panel will discuss and help the audience explore these challenging issues.

This is the 15th year of COMSNETS. COMSNETS continues to be a premier international conference dedicated to advances in Networking and Communications Systems. Undoubtedly, we are in an exciting time when we assume connectivity to be a fundamental right.Since its start, COMSNETS as well as the overall area of systems and networking have evolved and often dramatically so. This panel will go down the memory lane and reminisce about what the community thought networking was, and where it would be, where we actually are, and where we think we will be in the coming decades.

Ubiquitous communication is a significant goal of the 6G era. It is meant to unify terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks and radio systems to allow people to be enabled by telecommunication no matter where they may live in the world. Imagine the large swathes of the 7 continents of the world that are frequently only sparsely inhabited. Consider the ocean going traveler or those in the air space above us. 6G is intended to weave all platforms together seamlessly with the communication end points (such as the smartphone or other device), More so this should be affordable, so that it is not a service only for the wealthy, but for all people - this is what will make communication ubiquitous: accessible to anyone, and available everywhere. The technical challenges seem daunting. This panel will explore how 6G will usher in the start to this laudable vision, even though it may take many years and more than one generation of radio technology to achieve it.