Ericsson and Nokia back an evolutionary 6G core against Huawei's call for radical change

The core is software, traditionally hosted at a few data centers rather than thousands of mobile sites. It generates less revenue for the large vendors than the radio access network, but it carries critical network decisions, Light Reading reported.

The split at the Madrid plenary

At a 3GPP plenary in Madrid last month, Ericsson and Nokia, along with other European and US stakeholders, pushed for a more evolutionary approach: tinkering with the fundamentals and parking AI in a separate domain. Huawei and ZTE, China's two main 5G vendors, together with China Mobile, the country's biggest operator, called for a revolution instead. They want AI agents deeply integrated into 6G procedures, according to Light Reading.

Ruth Brown, a senior principal analyst at Omdia, described the result as "agent-handled connectivity" in recent research. Other non-Chinese players in an adjacent camp also want AI's role limited to use in certain 6G network functions.

Operators back evolution

Ahead of the plenary, 17 operators outside China, including all the European and US incumbents, submitted a joint position paper calling for "evolution as the starting point" in 6G system architecture. The 5G core should be "an important architectural foundation for 6G," the paper said.

Luke Ibbetson, Vodafone's head of research and development, put it plainly. "The 6G core is a very lightly tweaked version of the 5G core," he said. "It's not a new thing." Ericsson has used "evolution" since last year to frame its 6G thinking. "The 6G core will reuse a large part of that," Marie Hogan, its head of 6G portfolio strategy, said in June.

Why the fight matters

The 3GPP has survived the first rounds of 6G standardization. But the core fight threatens to produce a Chinese 6G that competes against one backed by Europe and the US. Many telcos have not even upgraded from the old 4G core that supports the non-standalone version of 5G.

There appears to be very little appetite for compromise, according to one European telco executive who was in Madrid and asked not to be named. "I am surprised that people don't want to compromise," he said. "Everyone wants simplicity as long as they get their own solution."

Brown warned that the split could leave operators managing two divergent cores: a revolutionary single-vendor solution in Chinese domestic markets and an evolutionary multi-vendor architecture in the rest of the world.

What happens next

Brown said post-Madrid discussions must finalize an architecture by November and deliver a system solid enough to keep a divided industry unified under a single global standard. The next 3GPP meeting was weeks away when Light Reading reported.