Analyst Dean Bubley said that 2026 will be a year of AI-generated slop on 6G
Even as Trump wades into the 6G spectrum sphere, Bubley argues that there's no obvious 6G traffic driver that requires massive amounts of new spectrum
Bubley said that the traditional model of massive operators delivering public services across a country will be supplemented by private and other types of 6G networks
2026 won't be the year of 6G, but expect a lot of unrealistic slop about the next cellular standard.
“In 2026, we're going to get bombarded by 6G industry position papers, lobbying documents, standards submissions, government telecoms and infrastructure policies...and all manner of AI-generated slop talking about multigigabit this and sub-millisecond that,” wrote Disruptive Analysis founder Dean Bubley on LinkedIn this week.
But 6G will be vaporware through 2026 and into 2027. The initial standard isn’t even going to be decided until sometime in 2028, while commercial 6G radios won’t be going up on poles until 2030.
Standards bodies including 3GPP are working hard on 6G and will continue throughout the year. But that doesn’t mean we will see much tangible progress on 6G over the next 12 months, said Ookla lead analyst Mike Dano. “In 2026, I think we’ll hear tons of talk about 6G and lots of PowerPoint slides and very little tangible progress,” he said.
White House weighs in on 6G
The Trump administration has already waded into the 6G contest with plans to reallocate the 7.125-7.4 GHz band of spectrum within a few years. But the standard doesn’t need much or any exclusive licensed spectrum at the macro level, Bubley argues.
“There's no obvious huge driver of future demand for traffic ‘tonnage’, especially outdoors or at national levels,” he said. “There might be some specific hotspots in urban centers — but there are multiple options to address that, from greater spectral efficiency in newer network variants, to more densification, to indoor-cellular and Wi-Fi offload.”
The AI connection
Will AI drive 6G demand? Maybe not. That traffic will likely be handled over data center silicon and switches, not over the air.
"AI Native" 6G is overhyped, Bubley said. Technologies such as beam management and energy efficiency will become more relevant but not utterly crucial. AI will be optional, not required on the 6G RAN and RAN network, he said.
6G goes private
6G won’t just be about major operators using vast gobs of spectrum across countries, the analyst argues. “I've been saying for years that the traditional G model of just a few national MNOs per country is coming to an end,” Bubley wrote. Instead, private networks will drive wireless demand. “6G will need to be ‘business model neutral’. We already have thousands of private 5G networks and in the 2030s it will be 10x or 100x more common.”
“There are also 5G networks used for government/military, satellite networks, local FWA, neutral hosts, metro/regional networks, utility grids, rail & road systems and various others,” he wrote.