A group of wireless industry stalwarts today launched an initiative to foster North America’s technology leadership through research and government support.

The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), which issued a similar call to action five months ago, is now formalizing that effort through the formation of the Next G Alliance.

The group is pursuing several goals, including efforts to “influence the U.S. government funding priorities and actions that will ultimately incentivize our technology industry,” ATIS President and CEO Susan Miller said. “We have found a void in the way other generations of technology have been addressed, both by the industry and by the government.”

It’s not so much a matter of the U.S. or North American market losing its way, but rather identifying an unmet opportunity to influence and educate governments on what their agencies can do to help and increase collaboration across the industry, Miller explained. 

Next G Alliance targets full lifecycle

The Next G Alliance is targeting the full lifecycle of technology, including research and development, manufacturing, standardization, and market readiness for commercialization.

Many activities that happened during the 5G development cycle were done independently, and the Next G Alliance wants to pull research, government policy, and industry collaboration efforts into a more united structure, explained Mike Nawrocki, VP of technology at ATIS.

There are probably at least a dozen U.S. government agencies that fund various aspects of 5G research today, he said, adding that the alliance is striving for a more cohesive strategy that identifies priorities in core technology areas where the North American market can succeed, and then direct government funding to those efforts on a more targeted basis. 

During the last few years, various arms of the U.S. government have thrown ideas around to improve the country’s standing on 5G, but relatively few have been pushed into action or delivered on that goal.

A significant measure of the Next G Alliance’s success will be based on the extent to which the U.S. government interfaces with the group, according to Miller. “What we know and observe is that now it happens in I’m sure some rational ways, but also in some respects, random,” she said.

“Out of the gate, one of the key things we will be focusing on is the Next G national agenda, which is really a 6G national roadmap that will address the changing and competitive landscape, so we are better positioned as North America to be a global leader across all of these different aspects of delivering on 6G and beyond 6G,” Miller said. 

That level of partnership between the industry and U.S. government isn’t happening today.

Chinese firms need not apply

The alliance’s focus on North America also necessitates the preclusion of Chinese companies’ involvement. “Huawei will not be at the table here,” Miller said. “This is North American focused. It’s consistent with what we know, the sensitivities and the policies to be, that are emerging” in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere.

The Chinese government is very “deliberate about looking forward, and perhaps here in North America, a bit less so, at least on an industry-wide basis. And that is part of the energy that feeds into the Next G Alliance — that we need to be that deliberate in our thinking as well,” she said. 

That type of long-range thinking is scant in the U.S., especially on a formalized policy basis, but Miller is also quick to point out that the Next G Alliance isn’t chasing the approaches embraced by the Chinese government and its technology vendors. 

“This has goodness of its own,” she said. “While we’re not chasing [China], I think we clearly landscaped and saw what was happening.”

The U.S. government and its economy at large, believes that free markets will succeed in the marketplace, “but even free markets need a foundation, and a vision, and a roadmap,” Nawrocki said. 

Founding members of the Next G Alliance include AT&T, Bell Canada, Ciena, Ericsson, Facebook, InterDigital, JMA Wireless, Microsoft, Nokia, Qualcomm, Samsung, Telus, Telnyx, T-Mobile US, U.S. Cellular, and Verizon.

Many of the companies involved, and governments in the countries they call home, are already pursuing independent research and development efforts on 6G at varying levels of interest. Moreover, most industry analysts note that China has already beat the U.S. on 5G and a lot will have to change before that imbalance shifts back to North America. 

The likelihood of the U.S. government better facilitating that goal is suspect, but the Next G Alliance and its members envision exactly that.