SungDuck Chun
Research Manager, Senior Principal Engineer

Ryan Keating
Senior Engineer

Marta Martinez Tarradell
Principal Engineer, 3GPP Standards

Jaehoon Chung
3GPP Standards Engineer

Overview

At the November 2025 3GPP meetings in Dallas, discussions across the Service and System Aspects (SA) and Radio Access Network (RAN) working groups marked a clear shift from high-level vision to early architectural definition of the requirements for the first release of 6G (“Day-1 6G”).

With Release-19 work effectively closed and the ASN.1 freeze approaching after RAN Plenary #110, 3GPP discussions are increasingly turning toward what the next-generation system will look like in practice. In parallel, SA2 has finalized the detailed 6G study Work Task descriptions after three intensive meetings—establishing the formal scope for technical discussions going forward. The February 2026 meeting will be pivotal: it marks the first session where companies must submit concrete solution proposals aligned with the agreed Work Task boundaries.

The tone of the meetings was not about radical reinvention. Instead, it reflected a deliberate effort to prioritize simplicity, unification, and deployability as foundational principles for what ‘Day-1 6G’ will mean in practice.

Key Takeaways from 3GPP’s Early 6G Work

1. Day-1 Feature Scope Is Taking Shape

SA2 has clarified which services may—and may not—be part of the first 6G release. Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) and sensing are confirmed as baseline features, with enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) as the primary service focus.

Notably, several mature 5G verticals may be Day-1 features, including Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN), Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X), Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBS), and Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB). This signals a deliberate prioritization of foundational services over vertical extensions in the initial release.

Why It Matters: Organizations working on V2X, TSN, or other specialized verticals may need to plan for support for these services to arrive in subsequent 6G releases rather than at launch. The focus on NTN and sensing as baseline features indicates where early ecosystem investment will concentrate.

2. Simplicity Is Emerging as a Primary Design Requirement

Across RAN2 discussions, there is growing agreement that many of 5G’s deployment challenges stemmed from over-configurability, fragmented mobility options, and excessive signaling overhead.

Early 6G studies emphasize simplified UE capability frameworks, more modular Radio Resource Control (RRC)  protocol, and fewer – but more commercially meaningful – mobility options. The 5G mobility landscape, with its multiple variants like handover, Layer-2 Triggered Mobility, and Dual Active Protocol Stack, is being rethought in favor of a unified framework that balances low interruption, robustness, and resource efficiency.

Why It Matters: This represents a shift in design philosophy. In 6G, architectural restraint is being treated as a prerequisite for scale and reliability. Proposals that add complexity without clear deployment justification are increasingly misaligned with the direction of the system.

3. Terrestrial and Non-Terrestrial Networks Are Being Designed as One System

One of the clearest outcomes from RAN2 is a commitment to pursue a unified radio design for Terrestrial Networks (TN) and Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) wherever technically feasible. Rather than treating satellite connectivity as an extension or special case, existing 5G NTN deployments across Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), and Geostationary Orbit (GSO) satellites are being used as baseline inputs into 6G design from the start.

Why It Matters: This elevates NTN from a niche capability to a core architectural assumption. Proposals that implicitly assume a purely terrestrial environment risk being out of step with 6G’s unified design philosophy.

4. AI/ML Is Being Formalized as a System-Wide Design Pillar

RAN1 reached formal consensus to identify and study AI/ML use cases across multiple technical areas, establishing AI/ML as a foundational consideration for 6G architecture—not just an add-on feature. Specific use cases gaining early traction include reducing reference signal overhead (for signals used in channel measurement and demodulation) and AI-driven beam management for more efficient antenna coordination.

The scope of AI integration remains contested. Many companies are advocating for AI agents embedded directly in the system architecture rather than treated as over-the-top services—a position that would fundamentally reshape how intelligence is distributed across the network. Meanwhile, Nokia’s contributions reflect its strategic partnership with Nvidia, pushing for RAN infrastructure to serve as centralized computing resources for end-user devices.

Why It Matters: The architectural placement of AI—whether as an application-layer overlay or a native system function—will shape everything from interface design to intellectual property positioning. The current lack of convergence suggests this will be a defining battleground in early 6G standardization.

5. Energy Efficiency Is Being Engineered Into the Radio

Energy efficiency featured prominently as a defining radio design principle, with joint power-saving considerations across both user equipment (UE) and the network.  RAN1 agreed on power models covering how devices process Wake-Up Signals alongside other communications and device sleep states—a prerequisite for consistent efficiency evaluation across the system.

Notably, 6G is converging toward a Wake-Up Signal design that is integrated into the baseline OFDM waveform (the fundamental signal structure), rather than treating power-saving signaling as a separate bolt-on mechanism. Discussions also addressed base station power models, including extended debate on how quickly 6G base stations can transition between sleep and active states.

Why It Matters: Efficiency in 6G is being treated as a system-level property, not a feature to be optimized in isolation. Gains achieved in one layer will be weighed against their downstream impact elsewhere, raising the bar for narrowly optimized proposals.

6. Operators Are Pushing for Binding Feature Deployment Accountability

A coalition of major operators and network vendors—including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, T-Mobile USA, Verizon, Telstra, Ericsson, and Nokia—introduced proposals to address the growing gap between features that are standardized and features that are actually deployed in live networks.

The first proposal calls for a globally aligned, binding procedure to ensure mandatory features are not only implemented by device vendors but actively tracked and deployed by network operators. The second introduces ‘Basic Feature Groups’—bundling numerous small features into coherent sets to simplify certification and establish a globally consistent minimum capability baseline across operators.

Why It Matters: This reflects mounting frustration with optional, rarely deployed features that fragment the ecosystem. In 6G, features may need not only to be standardized but to demonstrate a credible path to real-world adoption.

Signals to Watch

Several unresolved tensions from the Dallas meetings will shape upcoming discussions:

• Synchronization signal design: Chipset vendors and network equipment vendors remain in significant conflict over the baseline SSB (Synchronization Signal Block) periodicity for 6G. Progress on fundamental synchronization signal design is slow-moving.
• AI/ML training collaboration: Inter-vendor coordination for AI-based channel state compression—particularly how to handle training data samples and identification methods across different vendors—saw extensive debate without convergence. This has been deferred to the next meeting.
• AI use case prioritization: Some companies pushed to prioritize certain AI/ML use cases over others to manage study complexity, but this approach did not gain consensus. All identified use cases will likely be studied in parallel.

The Bottom Line for Practitioners

For those tracking or contributing to early 6G work, the direction emerging from Dallas is becoming clear:

• Design for simplicity and unification, not optional complexity.
• Assume convergence across terrestrial and satellite networks from the start.
• Treat energy efficiency as a system-wide constraint, not a feature-level optimization.
• Recognize that 6G Work Tasks are deeply interdependent—isolated optimization risks misalignment with system-level decisions being made elsewhere.
• Ground proposals in deployment and operational reality.

Overall, the focus in defining 6G has shifted toward what can be deployed, scaled, and sustained from Day-1—moving away from purely theoretical considerations and clarifying what the first 6G release must deliver in practice. With February’s meeting requiring concrete solution proposals, the window for shaping foundational 6G decisions is narrowing.