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Standards

Towards 6G Media

Early 3GPP and ITU-R 6G media standardisation studies, AI/ML groundwork and the 5G-MAG 6G Testbed.

Overview​

5G-MAG tracks the early standardisation of media aspects for 6G systems and builds reference tooling to characterise Artificial Intelligence (AI) and media traffic on future networks. 6G work in 3GPP is currently at the study stage (technical reports on use cases and service requirements). The focus here is therefore on understanding requirements and emulating traffic rather than implementing finished specifications. This page lists the relevant 3GPP studies and points to the 6G Testbed reference implementation, for anyone following how media and AI traffic requirements are shaping the next generation of mobile systems. For acronyms used here, see the Glossary.

Technology & Analysis

5G-MAG's inputs to 3GPP and ITU-R 6G workshops, and the technical view of this work.

Software Tools

The network emulator and AI traffic testbed used to ground 5G-MAG's 6G media requirement inputs.

The IMT-2030 and 3GPP context​

6G is being defined in two parallel processes that feed each other.

ITU-R (IMT-2030) sets the global framework. The ITU Radiocommunication sector published Recommendation ITU-R M.2160-0 in November 2023, "Framework and overall objectives of the future development of IMT for 2030 and beyond". It defines six usage scenarios for 6G. Three evolve from the 5G (IMT-2020) scenarios: immersive communication (from eMBB), massive communication (from mMTC) and hyper-reliable and low-latency communication (from URLLC). Three are new: ubiquitous connectivity, AI and communication, and integrated sensing and communication (ISAC). The framework also sets overarching design principles (sustainability, security and resilience, connecting the unconnected, and ubiquitous intelligence), and extends the 5G capability set with new capabilities. Media delivery at extreme data rates maps mainly to immersive communication; AI-native network operation maps to AI and communication.

3GPP writes the specifications. 6G is a Release-21 target. The current 3GPP work is at the study stage in Release 20: SA1 has produced the Stage 1 requirements study, and the architecture and media groups (SA2, SA4) are running exploratory studies rather than normative specifications. No normative 6G specifications exist yet. The normative Stage 1 phase starts in Release 21, and initial 6G specifications are expected around 2028. Readers should treat all study-stage content as provisional.

Key 3GPP Specifications​

  • 3GPP TR 22.870 - Study on 6G Use Cases and Service Requirements (SA1, Stage 1 requirements track). A broad, exploratory study that clusters use cases around the IMT-2030 usage scenarios (AI, ISAC, ubiquitous connectivity, massive communication and others) and derives candidate system requirements. It is the requirements-stage input that a later normative Stage 1 specification will consolidate.
  • 3GPP TR 26.870 - Study on Media Aspects for 6G System (SA4, media track, most relevant to 5G-MAG). The media-specific study that considers how media services, formats, traffic characteristics and delivery should evolve for a 6G system, building on the SA4 5G media work (5G Media Streaming and the Data Collection and Reporting framework).

6G media work does not start from scratch; it inherits the AI/ML groundwork done for 5G Advanced. Two studies are directly relevant and are covered in more detail on the AI & ML page:

  • TR 26.847 (SA4): Evaluation of AI and ML in 5G media services (Release 19, completed), covering evaluation testbed architectures, scenarios and metrics for media AI/ML use cases.
  • TR 22.874 (SA1): Study on traffic characteristics and performance requirements for AI/ML model transfer in 5GS, which characterises the latency, data-rate and availability needs of moving models across the network.

How the pieces fit​

  • ITU-R IMT-2030 defines the vision and capability targets (what 6G must be able to do).
  • 3GPP SA1 turns the parts relevant to services into use cases and candidate requirements (TR 22.870).
  • 3GPP SA4 looks at what those requirements mean for media specifically (TR 26.870), reusing the 5G media architecture as a baseline.
  • 3GPP SA2 works on the system architecture and network intelligence that media services depend on (for example the evolution of network data analytics; see AI & ML).

5G-MAG's role at this stage is to make media a first-class concern in these studies: contributing media use cases and requirements, and using experimental tooling to produce evidence (traffic measurements, labelled datasets) that grounds those contributions in data rather than assertion.

5G-MAG tracking and contribution focus​

5G-MAG follows the studies above and provides media-specific input to the 6G process. Publicly available inputs to 3GPP 6G workshops are listed on the technical view of this topic. The emphasis is on media delivery at extreme data rates, AI-assisted and AI-native management of media traffic, immersive and haptic experiences, and the evolution of broadcast and multicast towards 6G.

Reference Tools​

The 6G Testbed for AI and media traffic characterisation (a network emulator and AI traffic testbed) is available on the developer portal. It emulates realistic network conditions (including profiles derived from 3GPP 5QI values and candidate 6G conditions) and characterises how AI and media workloads behave over them, producing measurements and datasets that inform 5G-MAG's requirement inputs. See 6G Testbed on the developer portal.

References to verify

These identifiers on this page were not confirmed against a primary source (the 3GPP/ETSI portals block automated access): TR 26.870 (number and title "Study on Media Aspects for 6G System"). Verify against the 3GPP work plan before publication.

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Refer to the Standards repository to contribute to this documentation.