Edited by Petri Ahokangas Annabeth Aagaard The Changing World of Mobile Communications 5G, 6G and the Future of Digital Services The Changing World of Mobile Communications Petri Ahokangas · Annabeth Aagaard Editors The Changing World of Mobile Communications 5G, 6G and the Future of Digital Services Editors Petri Ahokangas Martti Ahtisaari Institute University of Oulu Oulu, Finland Annabeth Aagaard Department of Management Aarhus University Aarhus, Denmark ISBN 978-3-031-33190-9 ISBN 978-3-031-33191-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33191-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2024. This book is an open access publication. 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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33191-6 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Foreword by Dr. Peter Stuckmann Recent years have shown us the potential that 5G networks have to provide the connectivity basis for the digital and green recovery in the short to mid-term, and the need to build technology capacities for the following generation—6G—in the long term. Success in 6G depends on the ability to build a resilient, secure, and high-speed 5G infrastructure, which is trusted and will support advanced 5G capabilities, on which 6G technology experiments and, later, 6G deployments can build. The growth potential in economic activity enabled by 5G and later 6G networks and services has been estimated in the order of e3 trillion by 2030, according to McKinsey Global Institute, 2/2020. 5G networks evolution, notably 5G stand-alone, is expected to enable many industrial applications such as Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM), Industry 4.0, and advanced health care. But 6G systems will likely offer a new step change in performance, moving us from Gigabit toward Terabit capacities and sub-millisecond response times, and enabling new critical applications and an “Internet of Senses”, v vi Foreword by Dr. Peter Stuckmann collecting and providing the sensors data for nothing less than a digital twin of the physical world. To explore these opportunities, the Commission launched a major initiative to promote a European vision for 6G and to develop 6G concepts, technologies and systems, the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU). Co-led with the industry and driven by making a positive impact for our economy and society, the SNS JU addresses research, innovation, and deployment, through its two-pillar approach: it coordinates the European 5G Strategic Deployment Agenda and 5G corridors deployment projects, while fostering Europe’s tech- nology and industrial capacities in 6G, through a solid research and innovation roadmap and dedicated funding. With its 35 newly launched 6G R&I projects worth e250 million of EU funding, and a planned investment of around the same amount in 2023 and 2024, the SNS JU is pushing for research and inno- vation on key technology building blocks of 6G networks. The core research is on future system architecture and control, radio and signal processing, network and service security, optical networks for converged network infrastructure, devices and components, and edge and ubiqui- tous computing. Smart Networks and Services projects explore how to integrate terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks, while looking at special- purpose sub-networks in very short-range communication environments. These technology capacities are expected to become the basis for future digital services toward 2030. Research is being complemented by exper- imental infrastructures and large-scale trials and pilots to explore and demonstrate technologies and advanced applications and services for the verticals. Sustainability and security-by-design get special attention in 6G systems and architectures design and development, as Europe wants to lead by example the twin digital and green transition worldwide. Smart network technologies and architectures will need to drastically enhance their energy efficiency despite major traffic growth and keep electromagnetic fields (EMF) under safe limits. These design principles should form the technology base for a human-centric Next-Generation Internet (NGI) that addresses Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Foreword by Dr. Peter Stuckmann vii and cares about sustainability, trustworthiness, accessibility, and tech- nology affordability, while connecting the human and digital worlds for extreme experiences. Global standardization and spectrum harmonization need to be prepared by proactive and effective international cooperation at govern- ment and industry level. If the motto is one 6G global standard, the SNS JU needs to foster EU players’ industry positions in future 6G standards and markets, building on dialogues with leading regions and possible focused joint initiatives in R&I. Also, the outcomes of EU and national 6G research projects should advise the EU-level 6G spectrum roadmap. The long-term EU spectrum strategy beyond 5G depends on a united and influential EU role in the international spectrum negotiations—notably toward the upcoming World Radio Conferences. Moving into 6G surely presents a challenge for Europe: to maintain its technological leadership in the connectivity field, while building capac- ities on other fronts, such as in the edge cloud continuum, or in the chipset and components domains. There is also a key opportunity to consolidate European technolog- ical sovereignty, in line with the conclusions of the 5G Cybersecurity toolbox. The vision is that investing and mastering 6G technologies will foster our connectivity industry, and ultimately our economy and society. The Changing World of Mobile Communications—5G , 6G and the Future of Digital Services is timely to explore how 6G is expected to play a key role in the evolution of our economy and society toward 2030 and to contribute to a more secure and sustainable world. Dr. Peter Stuckmann Head of Unit—Future Connectivity Systems Deputy Director— Future Networks Interim Executive Director—Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking European Commission Foreword by Dr. Volker Ziegler The commercial roll-out and evolution of 5G networks is in full swing— in the meantime, more than 240 communication service providers and thousands of enterprises have launched 5G networks. The full promise of 5G services will become reality in the next years all over the world as 5G stand-alone architecture will enable innovative offerings such as network slicing. But it does not stop there. 5G Advanced will include readi- ness for use cases of extended reality as well as, for instance, enhanced commercial viability and performance of IoT offerings. And 6G is already on the horizon, commercial product availability is expected in 2029/30 time frame. It will be the essential infrastructure and plat- form for communications in the 2030s. 6G research has successfully started with strong momentum of collaboration as illustrated by the results of worldwide relevance of the EC H2020 6G flagship project Hexa-X. Use cases of the 6G era will include immersive telepresence, twinning, collaborating robots and mixed reality co-design, creating a 6th sense and specialized trusted sub-networks. These use case families will liberate human potential and drive economic, societal, and environ- mental sustainability. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence will be pervasive enablers across the technology stack. In the 2030s, metaverse ix x Foreword by Dr. Volker Ziegler ready networks and associated new capabilities will be key. Collabora- tive advantage beyond research will go together with business model transformation of Network-as-a-Service and the enabling of new services by Network-as-Code. Telecom networks will become key to everything digital. Companies and organizations across every industry around the world will leverage digitalization to improve efficiency, flexibility, and productivity in a sustainable way. To meet these requirements, communi- cation networks will be enhanced with the open flexibility and scalability of the distributed cloud. The networks of the future will sense, think, and act and thereby transform business, industry, and society. Devel- oping Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) into a competitive advantage and building trustworthy platforms are strategic imperatives. Private-public partnership and regulation have been instrumental in preparing the ground for successful take-off of 5G networks. As we are now getting ready for the 6G era, the time has come to explore new paradigms from the interlinking of industrial policy, innovation, and regulation while avoiding government mandates. Availability of radio spectrum will continue to be a key prerequisite and new bands dedi- cated to cellular communications will help foster sustainable economic impact for the long term. Economy of scale from global standards and the avoidance of duplication of effort seem essential. Standards should be industry-lead and a fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory patent regime will be key for value capture of practicing entities. Our purpose is to create technology that helps the world act together and connec- tivity continues to be the key enabler. The book The Changing World of Mobile Communications - 5G , 6G and the Future of Digital Services provides a comprehensive and fresh perspective on the evolution of mobile networks in the broad context of future enabling technologies Foreword by Dr. Volker Ziegler xi and innovation, scenarios of sustainable business transformation as well as aspects of regulatory change. Dr. Volker Ziegler Senior Technology Advisor Chief Architect Nokia Strategy and Technology Nokia Foreword by Prof. Christopher L. Tucci You are reading a book that is going to change the way you think about telecommunications. Telecoms has been fighting a long, slow slide from the days in which national telecoms monopolies made massive infras- tructure investments and recouped them by charging high prices to businesses and consumers who had few alternatives. As these fixed-cost recovery issues have become more and more salient in recent decades with increasing deregulation and competition, there has been a shift toward mobile services as a way of adding additional revenue streams, which has helped, but recent trends indicate that telecoms compa- nies will probably need to embrace completely new and unfamiliar business models within the next ten years as 5G continues its diffu- sion and 6G comes online. Both competition in telecoms services and complementor business models (such as over-the-top services) will put increasing pressure on telecoms operators. Indeed, the rapid increase in digitalization has had an outsize impact on the way we work and live, as well as the way we communicate as xiii xiv Foreword by Prof. Christopher L. Tucci individuals and as organizations. With the global pandemic, new work practices have emerged that require the ability of large numbers of people to work remotely and effectively—individually and in groups—while communicating using high-bandwidth video and other Internet appli- cations. All of this has put increasing demands on how technologies, businesses, and services are developed in the information and commu- nications technology (ICT) space, while at the same time pressuring ICT business models and business ecosystems. Many of the services that were previously provided by mobile network operators (MNOs) now face competition from the public Internet, challenging the business models of domestic connectivity providers. This evolution, intertwined with tech- nology advances and regulatory bodies, builds pressure on regulators and policymakers, who must consider their responsibilities in navigating new market dynamics for the greater good of society, and who need to balance innovation promotion with protecting the public in the shorter term. Amidst all of this complexity and co-evolution of markets, tech- nologies, and regulations, one might sensibly ask what future world of ICT technologies, policies, businesses, and business ecosystems are on the horizon? With this edited volume, The Changing World of Mobile Communications - 5G , 6G and the Future of Digital Services, the editors and authors, who are among the world’s leading ICT, mobile communi- cations, and business model specialists, make a bold and critical attempt to answer this question by combining the three perspectives of business models, ICT technologies, and technology policy in an engaging and logical fashion. In developing this narrative, the book provides cutting-edge knowl- edge, overviews, and unique insights into the central ICT developments that have and will have immense impact on the business, technolog- ical, and regulatory perspectives of mobile communications. In addition, the book brings forth future avenues for ICT research and mobile communications developments to guide both industry leaders, managers, researchers, and policymakers. It is difficult to predict exactly when the traditional telecoms business model will reach a breaking point, but this book will help you make an informed judgment about how soon Foreword by Prof. Christopher L. Tucci xv that day will come, and what some of the options are in the new telecommunications ecosystem space. Prof. Christopher L. Tucci Professor of Digital Strategy and Innovation Imperial College London, UK Contents Part I Mapping the Mobile Communications Context 1 Introduction to the Book 3 Petri Ahokangas and Annabeth Aagaard 2 The Evolution of Mobile Communications 13 Seppo Yrjölä, Marja Matinmikko-Blue, and Petri Ahokangas 3 Future Scenarios and Anticipated Impacts of 6G 45 Seppo Yrjölä, Petri Ahokangas, and Marja Matinmikko-Blue 4 Sustainability Transition and 6G Mobile Communications 93 Marja Matinmikko-Blue and Ahmad Arslan Part II Value Creation and Capture in Future Mobile Communications 5 Value Creation and Services in Mobile Communications 113 Annabeth Aagaard, Petri Ahokangas, Marika Iivari, Irina Atkova, Seppo Yrjölä, and Marja Matinmikko-Blue xvii xviii Contents 6 Business Models in 5G/6G Mobile Communications 137 Petri Ahokangas, Annabeth Aagaard, Irina Atkova, Seppo Yrjölä, and Marja Matinmikko-Blue 7 Benefiting from Innovation in Future 6G 167 Pia Hurmelinna-Laukkanen and Seppo Yrjölä Part III Regulatory and National Considerations 8 Local 5G/6G Network Business in Europe: Regulatory Analysis and Legitimacy Considerations 185 Oxana Gisca, Marja Matinmikko-Blue, Petri Ahokangas, Seppo Yrjölä, and Jillian Gordon 9 Toward Anticipatory Regulation and Beyond 221 Georg Serentschy, Paul Timmers, and Marja Matinmikko-Blue 10 Sovereignty and 6G 253 Paul Timmers and Georg Serentschy Part IV Implications for the Future 11 A View to Beyond 6G 285 Seppo Yrjölä, Marja Matinmikko-Blue, and Petri Ahokangas 12 Opportunities and Implications Related to Future Mobile Communications 307 Petri Ahokangas, Annabeth Aagaard, Seppo Yrjölä, Marja Matinmikko-Blue, Paul Timmers, Georg Serentschy, Jillian Gordon, Irina Atkova, Pia Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, Ahmad Arslan, Marika Iivari, and Oxana Gisca Index 323 Notes on Contributors Prof. Annabeth Aagaard earned her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Front-end Innovation (2009) and thereafter continued her interest and research in the innovation and business development area. She is Professor of Digi- talization at the Department of Management, Aarhus University, and the Founding Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Business Development. Her research focuses on digital and sustainable business development, open innovation & innovation management, ecosystems, and governance. She has authored and co-authored fifteen textbooks and more than 200 public and scientific papers in journals such as the Journal of Product Innovation Management , Industrial Marketing Manage- ment , the International Journal of Innovation Management , etc. She is also heavily involved in research projects in the areas of digital transforma- tion and Next Generation Internet sponsored by EU Horizon 2020 and industrial foundations, and in addition acts as a speaker and strategic advisor to industry and Scandinavian top100 companies on digital and sustainable topics. Prof. Petri Ahokangas received his D.Sc. degree (1998) from the University of Vaasa, Finland. Currently, he is the professor of future xix xx Notes on Contributors digital business and director of the Martti Ahtisaari Institute, Oulu Busi- ness School, University of Oulu. Prior to his academic career, he worked in the telecoms/software industry. His research is in the intersection of entrepreneurship, strategic management, international business, futures research, and action research in various fields of high technology. Specif- ically, he is interested in business models, strategies, ecosystems, and internationalization within digital, mobile (5G/6G), smart energy, and smart city domains. He has close to 300 scientific publications and has published in high-ranking journals such as the IEEE Communications Magazine, IEEE Wireless communications magazine, Technological Fore- casting and Social Change, and the Journal of Business Studies. He actively participates in and leads international and national projects funded by EU Horizon H2020 program or national projects funded by Business Finland as primary investigator and work package leader. Prof. Ahmad Arslan currently works as a professor at the Depart- ment of Marketing, Management and International Business, Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, Finland. He also holds the posi- tion of Honorary Chair in Business Management at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. His earlier research has been published in prestigious academic journals like the British Journal of Manage- ment , Human Resource Management (US), IEEE Transactions on Engi- neering Management , the International Business Review, the International Marketing Review, the Journal of Business Research, the Journal of Inter- national Management , the Journal of Knowledge Management , Produc- tion Planning & Control , Technological Forecasting and Social Change, and the Scandinavian Journal of Management , among others. He has also contributed book chapters to several edited handbooks addressing various management topics. Finally, he holds several editorial board memberships. Lastly, he is currently an Associate Editor of International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business (Inderscience). Assist prof. Irina Atkova received her D.Sc. degree (2018) from Oulu Business School, University of Oulu. Her dissertation explores how entrepreneurs create business models to capture opportuni- ties. The dissertation won the 2018 Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Notes on Contributors xxi Doctoral Research Award in the Management and Governance cate- gory. Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher at the Martti Ahtisaari Institute, Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, in the 6G Flag- ship funded by the Academy of Finland. She has published in journals such as Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Global Strategy Journal, and the Journal of Business Models. Her research interests revolve around the business model phenomenon in various applications and contexts, including telecommunications and the startup context. M.Sc. Oxana Gisca is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie early-stage researcher within the “Legitimation of Newness and Theory Building” EU project at the Martti Ahtisaari Institute, Oulu Business School, University of Oulu. Oxana received her M.Sc. in Law at the University of the Euro- pean Studies of Moldova. Prior to her academic career; she worked in a specialized agency under the Government of the Republic of Moldova and has had leading roles in international committees under the Council of Europe and the Egmont Group. Currently, she is exploring the emer- gence of the legitimacy of new business models and ecosystems within the 6G technology context. Prof. Jillian Gordon is professor of Entrepreneurship at the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow. Her current research exam- ines emerging entrepreneurial ventures, the Internet of Things, digital entrepreneurship trends, and wealth recycling. She is particularly inter- ested in how the practice and logics of entrepreneurship translate across social contexts. Her research has been published in leading international journals, including the Harvard Business History Review, Business History, and FT 50 ranked journals, including the Journal of Business Ethics and Human Relations. During her career, she has also secured several compet- itive research funding awards from major funders, including the ESRC, EPSRC, Horizon 2020, and the EU EIT Scheme. Prof. Pia Hurmelinna-Laukkanen is a professor and director of the Department of Marketing, Management and International Business at the Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, and an Adjunct Professor at LUT University. She has published about 90 refereed articles in xxii Notes on Contributors journals such as the Journal of Management Studies, Research Policy, the Journal of Product Innovation Management , the California Manage- ment Review, Industrial and Corporate Change, Industrial Marketing Management , the International Business Review, R&D Management , and Technovation. Most of her research has involved innovation management and appropriability issues, including an examination of different knowl- edge protection and value capturing mechanisms and their strategic uses. Her research covers varying contexts like internationalization and interorganizational collaboration in ICT and the healthcare sectors. Dr. Marika Iivari is an Adjunct Professor in the field of Digitalization and Business Analytics at the Martti Ahtisaari Institute, Oulu Business School, University of Oulu. She gained her D.Sc. (Econ. & Bus. Admin.) in the field of business models, open innovation and ecosystems in 2016, and has worked in several national and international R&D&I projects in various technological contexts. She has been an advisor in the Urban Agenda for EU’s Digital Transition Partnership. In addition, she has industry experience, having worked in management roles in the software business. She is also associated with Imperial College London’s Centre for Digital Transformation. Currently, her research interests, in addition to innovation, business modeling and design, expand to data-driven 106 decision making and the data economy. Dr. Marja Matinmikko-Blue received her D.Sc. degree (2012) in telecommunications engineering and Ph.D. degree (2018) in industrial engineering and management from the University of Oulu, Finland. Currently, she is Research Director of the Infotech Oulu Focus Insti- tute and Director of Sustainability and Regulation at the 6G Flagship program at the University of Oulu, where she also holds an adjunct professor position on spectrum management. She conducts multidis- ciplinary research on technical, business, and regulatory aspects of mobile communications systems in close collaboration between industry, academia, and regulators. She has coordinated four national project consortia that have successfully demonstrated the world’s first licensed shared access spectrum sharing trials and introduced a new local 5G operator concept that has become a reality. She has published 190+ scien- tific publications and prepared 150+ contributions to regulatory bodies Notes on Contributors xxiii on spectrum management at national, European, and international levels. Dr. Georg Serentschy with a professional span of more than 40 years, began his career in the field of nucle physics, after which he devoted himself to industrial research and development in various industrial high-tech areas such as software development, solar energy, aerospace, and telecommunications. After his industrial career, he joined Arthur D. Little, a strategy consulting firm. His next step was to head the Regulatory Authority for Telecommunications in Austria (RTR-GmbH) for more than a decade. The highlight of his regulatory career was the chairmanship and vice-chairmanship of BEREC (Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications). In 2014, he founded his own consulting boutique, which focuses on advising the C-suite and top experts in the digital sector (platforms, telecom, media, and technology) on strategy, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, regulation & competition, spectrum policy, cybersecurity policy, and innovation. One of the focus areas of his consulting work is the strategic positioning of companies in a specific regulatory environment. In parallel, Georg serves as Senior Advisor for the Communication Practice and the Public Policy Practice of the global law firm Squire Patton Boggs. Prof. Dr. Paul Timmers is research associate at the University of Oxford, Oxford Internet Institute, professor at KU Leuven and Euro- pean University Cyprus and the University of Rijeka (visiting), senior advisor EPC Brussels, President of the Supervisory Board Estonian eGov- ernance Academy, member of the EU Cyber Direct Advisory Board, research fellow of CERRE, and CEO of iivii. Previously, he was Director at the European Commission/DG CONNECT where has held respon- sibility for legislation and funding programmes for cybersecurity, e-ID, digital privacy, digital health, smart cities, and e-government. He was also a cabinet member of European Commissioner Liikanen. He worked as manager of a software department in a large ICT company and co-founded an ICT start-up. He holds a physics PhD from Radboud University (Nijmegen, NL), MBA from Warwick University (UK), EU fellowship at UNC Chapel Hill (US), and a cybersecurity qualification from Harvard. His main interests are digital policy, geopolitics, and xxiv Notes on Contributors Europe. He frequently publishes and speaks on digital developments, technology and sovereignty, cybersecurity, industrial policy, and sectoral policies such as digital health, and is regularly advising governments and thinktanks. Prof. Seppo Yrjölä holds a D.Sc. degree in Telecommunications Engi- neering from the University of Oulu and is Professor at the faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Oulu in the field of techno-economics. He is Principal Engineer at Nokia Enterprise and has been building radios for 34 years in research, devel- opment, innovation, and business development. Previously, he was head of wireless technology for the Networks division at Nokia. He has been awarded over e10 million in competitive research funding as the lead investigator, authored more than 140+ scientific publications, and holds several patents in the radio domain. Prof. Yrjölä conducts multidisci- plinary research, combining technology, business, and regulatory aspects. His current mission is digitalizing the 70% of GDP that has yet to be digitalized in order to drive massive productivity growth and new busi- ness. With roots in engineering and economics, he explores how and why platform-based ecosystemic business models can emerge in the future wireless system context in a sustainable and human-centric way. Abbreviations 3 Cs Capacities, Capabilities, Control 3D Three Dimensional 3GPP 3rd Generation Partnership Project 3GPP2 3rd Generation Partnership Project Two 4C Connectivity, Content, Context, Commerce 5GA The Fifth Generation-Advanced Mobile Communication 5GC The Fifth Generation Core Network 5C Connectivity, Cloud, Content, Context, Commerce AaaS Application-as-a-Service aaS as a Service AI Artificial Intelligence AIA Artificial Intelligence Act API Application Programming Interface AR Augmented Reality ATIS US Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions B2B Business to Business B2C Business to Consumer B5GPC Japan’s Beyond 5G Promotion Consortium BATX Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi BEREC Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications xxv xxvi Abbreviations BM Business Model BMI Business Model Innovation BRI Chinese Belt and Road Initiative BTS Basic Telecommunications Services CAPEX Capital Expenditure CDMA2000 Code Division Multiple Access 2000 CECC European Electronic Communications Code CEPT European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations CLA Causal Layered Analysis CMA UK’s Competition and Markets Authority CO2 Carbon Dioxide COVID-19 Coronavirus Disease CS Cybersecurity CSA Cybersecurity Act CSL China’s Cybersecurity Law CT Core Network & Terminals CV Curriculum Vitae DA Data Act DaaS Data as a Service DAO Decentralized Autonomous Organization DC EU’s Digital Compass DDI Digital Dependency Index DevOps Development and Operations DG Directorate General DGA Data Governance Act DMA Digital Market Act DNA Deoxyribonucleic Acid DRCF UK’s Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum DS Digital Strategy DSA Digital Service Act DSM Digital Single Market e2e end to end EC European Commission EC DSM EU’s Digital Single Market Strategy EC ePR e-Privacy Regulation EC ODD EU’s Open Data Directive EC RPE EU’s recovery Plan for Europe EC SEDF EU’s shaping Europe’s Digital Future Abbreviations xxvii ECJ European Court of Justice, Luxembourg EDE European Digital Economy EECC European Electronic Communications Code eID electronic Identification EMA Singapore’s Energy Market Authority eMBB enhanced Mobile Broadband EMF Electromagnetic Field ENISA European Cybersecurity Agency ESG-D Environmental, Social, Governance, Democracy ETNO European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Associa- tion ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute EU European Union FAANG Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Alphabet FP Framework Program FRAND Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory GAFA Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon GDP Gross Domestic Product GDPR EU’s General Data Protection Regulation GHG Greenhouse Gas GPT General-Purpose Technology GSM Global System for Mobile Communications GSMA Global System for Mobile Communications Association HMI Human-Machine Interface HW Hardware I5.0 Industry 5.0 IaaS Infrastructure as a Service IAB Internet Architecture Board IaC Infrastructure as Code IASB International Accounting Standards Board ICANN Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ICDT Information, Communication, and Data Technology ICO UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office ICT Information and Communication Technology IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IETF Internet Engineering Task Force IIoT Industrial Internet of Things IMDA Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority IMT International Mobile Telecommunications xxviii Abbreviations IoT Internet of Things IIoT Industrial Internet of Things IP Intellectual Property IPR Intellectual Property Right ISP Internet Service Provider IT Information Technology ITU UN’s International Telecommunication Union ITU-R UN’s International Telecommunication Union Radiocommu- nication Sector ITU-T UN’s International Telecommunication Union Telecommuni- cation Standardization Sector KFTC Korea Fair Trade Commission KPI Key Performance Indicator KVI Key Value Indicator LEO Low Earth Orbit LoRaWan Long Range Wide Area Network LTE Long-Term Evolution, the Fourth Generation of Mobile Communications MAS Money Authority of Singapore MIIT China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ML Machine Learning MLP Multi-Level Perspective mMTC Massive Machine Type Communication MNO Mobile Network Operator MOST China’s Ministry of Science and Technology MRFTA Korea’s Monopoly, Regulation and Fair-Trade Act MSIT South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT MVNO Mobile Virtual Network Operator NaaC Network as a Code NaaS Network as a Service NBIC Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology, and Cognitive Science NCC Taiwan’s National Communications Commission nG nth Generation Of Mobile Communications (1G-6G) NGA NextG Alliance NGO Non-Governmental Organization NICT Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology NPN Nonpublic Network Abbreviations xxix NRA National Regulatory Agency NRAs National Regulatory Authorities NSA Non Stand Alone NTN Non Terrestrial Network OEM Original Equipment Manufacturer OFCOM UK’s Office of Communications OPEX Operational Expenditure OTT Over the Top P2P Peer to Peer PaaS Platform as a Service PESTLE Political, Environmental, Social, Technological, Legal, and Economic PFI Profiting From Innovation PNI Public Network Integrated PPP Public-Private-People PRC People’s Republic of China R&D Research and Development RAN Radio Access Network RPE EU’s Recovery Plan for Europe SA Stand Alone or System Architecture SaaS Software as a Service SBA Service-Based Architecture SDGs UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals SDN Software Defined Radio SEDF Shaping Europe’s Digital Future SEP Standard Essential Patent SLA Service Level Agreement SNSJU European Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking SU Security Union SW Software SWIFT Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication TBL Triple Bottom Line TCO Total Cost of Ownership TDMA Time Division Multiple Access THz Terahertz TIP Transformative Innovation Policy TTC Trans-Atlantic Trade and Technology Council UE User Equipment UI User Interface xxx Abbreviations UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System UN United Nations URLLC Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications US United States of America VATS Value-Added Telecommunications Services VR Virtual Reality VUCA Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity W3C World Wide Web Consortium Web3 World Wide Web Three Wi-Fi Wireless Fidelity WIMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access WP5D ITU-R’s Working Party 5D WRC ITU-R’s World Radio Conference XaaS Everything as a Service XR Extended Reality List of Figures Fig. 2.1 Expected 3GPP standardization timeline and ITU-R process for IMT systems 17 Fig. 2.2 The transformation of technology innovation across 6G system architecture layers stems from the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) system architecture (Adapted from Yrjölä et al., 2022) 23 Fig. 2.3 The value chain in 2G, 3G, 4G (upper part of the figure), and 5G (lower part of the figure) 28 Fig. 2.4 From engineering platforms toward service modularity and ecosystem platforms 29 Fig. 2.5 Evolution from vertical and horizontal business logics toward oblique value creation and value capture in 6G (Adapted form Yrjölä et al., 2022) 34 Fig. 3.1 Identified key trends 48 Fig. 3.2 Identified key uncertainties 55 Fig. 3.3 Summary of selected scenario themes 61 Fig. 3.4 Summary of four scenarios 62 Fig. 6.1 A strategy-technology view on mobile communications business models 151 xxxi xxxii List of Figures Fig. 6.2 Three types of business model and ecosystem configurations in 6G 159 Fig. 7.1 Benefiting from innovation in a 6G context framework with a comparison to 4G and 5G (Source Hurmelinna-Laukkanen and Yang, [2022]) 171 Fig. 8.1 The EU’s priorities for the digital single market 195 Fig. 8.2 Regulatory legitimacy challenges and perspectives 208 Fig. 9.1 Regulatory trajectories from traditional to anticipatory regulation 240 Fig. 10.1 Geopolitics versus technology 263 Fig. 11.1 A legitimation view of the worldviews, myths, and metaphors in 6G visions 300 List of Tables Table 5.1 Identified mobile communications services in 5G 121 Table 8.1 Managerial choices and consequences derived from the identified legal framework for emerging local 5G/6G private networks 213 Table 9.1 5th Generation Regulation (G5) countries by score, rank, and the ICT regulatory tracker 238 Table 10.1 Recommendation toward open, global, and full 6G 273 Table 10.2 Participation of Chinese companies in EU-funded projects 279 Table 11.1 The causal layered analysis of national and regional 6G visions transformed into 6G futures toward beyond 6G 297 xxxiii Part I Mapping the Mobile Communications Context 1 Introduction to the Book Petri Ahokangas and Annabeth Aagaard I have a story to tell you. It has many beginnings, and perhaps one ending. Perhaps not. Beginnings and endings are contingent things anyway; inventions, devices. Where does any story really begin? There is always context, always an encompassingly greater epic, always something before the described events, unless… (Iain M. Banks, The Algebraist) P. Ahokangas (B) Martti Ahtisaari Institute, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland e-mail: petri.ahokangas@oulu.fi A. Aagaard Department of Management, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark e-mail: aaa@mgmt.au.dk © The Author(s) 2024 P. Ahokangas and A. Aagaard (eds.), The Changing World of Mobile Communications, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33191-6_1 3 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-031-33191-6_1&domain=pdf mailto:petri.ahokangas@oulu.fi mailto:aaa@mgmt.au.dk https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33191-6_1 4 P. Ahokangas and A. Aagaard The Aim and Purpose of the Book Mobile communications as the backbone for digitalization in modern society in many ways define how digital services are being designed, delivered, and consumed. Despite its central role for individuals, orga- nizations, and societies in digitalization, the mobile communications context is only scantily researched outside the engineering domain. However, the idea for the book was initiated within the world’s first 6G research program, the 6G Flagship at the University of Oulu, Finland, funded by the Academy of Finland as an eight-year research endeavor from 2018 to 2026. The book aims to provide a comprehensive and multidisciplinary outlook on the present and future, focusing on the changing world of mobile communications, written by a team of authors representing relevant experience and expertise in the business, regulation, and technology management domains. Contrary to many conventionally edited and peer-reviewed scientific books, the content of the chapters have been peer-reviewed and coordinated to provide a coherent, holistic, and multidisciplinary forward-looking view to understand and make sense of what we call the world of mobile communications. Mobile communications technologies are often referred to by exam- ining what generation of technology they represent in the continuum from the first generation (1G) to the latest fifth generation (5G) tech- nology. These generations are backward compatible, meaning that the currently used communications technologies may be based on any of the generations from 2G to 5G. These technologies should also be forward compatible with the next generation mobile communications technolo- gies. The research on future 6G already started a few years ago, and we are expecting that it will be commercially available by 2030. However, what 6G will be, and how it will be used, remains unknown. Today’s 4G services are available practically everywhere, and the adop- tion of 5G networks is well underway. Compared to 4G, 5G has already brought about new business opportunities, especially in indus- trial domains and by enabling seamless virtual and augmented reality services. However, it (5G) also raised serious concerns about data privacy and security and the use of artificial intelligence. As the global vision for 6G will be released in 2023, we need to understand already today 1 Introduction to the Book 5 what 5G evolution and 6G may bring for the future service delivery, and how they will influence us at user, business, business ecosystem, and geopolitical levels. Future 5G evolution and 6G are not only about moving toward faster, better, and more secure networks providing the backbone for innovative digital services. 5G and 6G will bring about a profound digital disruption that concerns everybody: individuals as the users and the developers of the service; companies that are developing and providing these technologies; companies that are providing mobile communications services, i.e., the operators; companies that are offering their services on public or private 5G and 6G services or needing these services; the authorities and public organizations; and policymakers and regulators. Currently, no books are available that bring together business and regulation perspectives of mobile communications with strong engi- neering expertise. A more holistic picture of 5G and 6G is therefore lacking in existing publications and in the present discussions of ICT. Consequently, the aim and purpose of the book it to provide the reader with a state-of-the-art, multidisciplinary, and insightful overview and vision presented by experts in the field. With this book, we, therefore, aim to explore and provide answers to the following questions: • What will 5G, its evolution, and 6G be about? • How will 5G and 6G influence future digital services, businesses, and society, and what kind of impacts will they have on them? • How should 5G and 6G be regulated in the future? • How could we benefit from 5G and 6G innovations in the future? Who Should Read the Book, and Why? This book is targeted at and written for managers, practitioners, poli- cymakers, and students who want to understand what 5G and 6G will be about, the kind of impacts they might have, and how we can benefit from them in the future. It also provides a holistic view of future mobile communications business and regulative aspects to engineers working in 6 P. Ahokangas and A. Aagaard the mobile communications sector. The key subject areas concerned are engineering, policy, management, and business. The book can be used in higher education in engineering and management, as well as digital business. Furthermore, the book is applicable by (1) managers, who are active in mobile communications and/or apply mobile connectivity as the backbone of their digitalization and digital services, (2) regulatory bodies and policymakers, who operate in the field of mobile connectivity, or whose work has implications for related businesses and services, and (3) researchers and universities and other higher education institutions, and their students. Accordingly, the book: • Provides a holistic and insightful view of the future of mobile connec- tivity as the backbone for all digitalization, given by experts in the field. • Combines the technical and business-related perspectives of the field in exploring the unique and vast business potential, while addressing the impact on policymaking. • Contributes valuable insights and new knowledge to all who study, develop, manage, provide, use, and regulate mobile connectivity and related businesses. • Inspires the reader through practical and reality-based examples and industry views on future 5G/6G. How Was the Book Developed? With the aim to provide a more holistic view of 5G, 6G, and beyond, in leveraging more human-centric information and communications tech- nologies (ICT), we have initiated, developed, and edited this book on The Changing World of Mobile Communications: 5G , 6G , and the Future of Digital Services with chapters co-authored by researchers and prac- titioners working at the interface between business, engineering, and policymaking. Through close dialogues and collaborations between the co-authors, we have aimed to facilitate a more holistic discussion and presentation of the content, impact, and future scenarios of telecom- munications. In doing so, the book seeks to bridge these three large 1 Introduction to the Book 7 and vibrant research communities with a view to informing future research, as well as practitioners and policymakers, on the neglected but vital contributions that ICT ecosystems and businesses can make to sustainably creating and capturing value for society. Underpinning the book is the core question of how 5G/6G can contribute to sustain- able value creation and value capture from a business, engineering, and policymaking perspective. Structure of the Book The structure of the book is created to answer these questions and build a stepwise learning experience for the reader in four parts. Part I maps the mobile communications context, Part II examines value creation and capture in the context, Part III focuses regulatory and national consid- erations, and Part IV, building collectively on the preceding chapters, discusses implications for future consideration for research, management, and policymaking. Part I Mapping the Mobile Communications Context Part I of the book starts with an introduction (Chapter 1). The Introduc- tion to the book chapter provides an overview of the book’s purpose, aim, content, and targeted contribution and target audiences and provides a short presentation to each chapter and biographies of all the authors. Chapter 2 Evolution of mobile communications introduces the evolu- tion of mobile communications. As this context is expected to become increasingly platform-based and ecosystemic, it is important to distin- guish relevant perspectives to map the developments in the field. The chapter provides an outlook from the first (1G) to fifth (5G) generation of mobile communications by examining technology and standardiza- tion, relevant regulatory developments, and content, and specifically characterizes the business ecosystems toward the sixth generation of mobile communications (6G). The purpose of the chapter is to provide a 8 P. Ahokangas and A. Aagaard contextual setting for the discussions presented in the subsequent chap- ters by showing the emergence and evolutionary continuum of mobile communications from 1G toward 6G. Chapter 3 Future scenarios and anticipated impacts of 6G examines future scenarios of 6G at different levels of analysis, aiming to identify and assess the key change political, environmental, social, technolog- ical, and legal forces—trends and uncertainties—related to future mobile communications and proposes a set of dimensions according to which we can expect 6G to change the world. Based on the proposed dimension, the chapter presents a set of future scenarios related to mobile connec- tivity integrated with various services at the user (humans and machines), business (service provisioning and utilization), business ecosystem value chain (upstream and downstream), and geopolitical levels of analysis. Chapter 4 Sustainability transition and 6G mobile communications highlights 6G mobile communications’ link with the sustainability tran- sition. Using both theoretical arguments and practical examples, the chapter applies the multilevel perspective of the sustainability transi- tion to highlight specificities of the niches, sociotechnical regimes, and exogenous sociotechnical landscapes of 6G technology in relation to the sustainability transition. Part II Value Creation and Capture in Future Mobile Communications Chapter 5 Value creation and services in mobile communications explores the opportunities for value creation via the services enabled by the fifth (5G) and sixth (6G) generation of mobile communications, with a specific focus on value creation at the service, platform, and ecosystem levels of analysis. The chapter presents the 5G and 6G usage cases as starting points, highlighting the drivers of value creation and the key services enabled by the mobile communications technology generations. Chapter 6 Business models in 5G/6G mobile communications exam- ines business models in mobile communications that have remained surprisingly stable up to 4G. 5G and beyond generations will bring a fundamental change to how mobile connectivity is deployed and 1 Introduction to the Book 9 commercialized. This chapter explores the business opportunities, busi- ness models, and changing platformic business ecosystems of the future that extend beyond traditional company boundaries. Chapter 7 Benefiting from innovation in future 6G takes a wider perspective on profiting from innovation and discusses firm, ecosystem, industry, and policy-level aspects relevant for developing 5G/6G. To date, mobile communications networks have been seen as enabling tech- nologies whose innovations potential can be characterized by examining technology complementarity, standardization, and intellectual property issues. With 6G, especially in combining artificial intelligence, the mobile network gains features of a general-purpose technology platform with specificities regarding the appropriability of value. Part III Regulatory and National Considerations Chapter 8 Local 5G/6G network business in Europe: regulatory analysis and legitimacy considerations focuses on the EU Digital Legal Framework; it identifies and discusses relevant EU legal acts and presents the EU legal initiatives in the context of local mobile communications networks. It reviews previous research from the legitimacy challenge perspective and improves understanding of how regulation currently delimits the emerging business models of the local 5G/6G networks. Chapter 9 Toward anticipatory regulation and beyond discusses the need of telecom regulators to break out of their sectoral silos and analyzes the regulatory situation in Europe, North America, and Asia. The chap- ters derive conclusions on how Europe’s competitiveness and innovative strength can be improved with better interlinking of industrial policy, innovation, and regulation by introducing the anticipatory regulation approach. Chapter 10 Sovereignty and 6G discusses how sovereignty has become a top priority for government leaders and asks what sovereignty is in the world of 6G. Or is the question rather what 6G is in a world where safeguarding sovereignty is the major theme of geopolitical collaboration, 10 P. Ahokangas and A. Aagaard competition, and conflict? The chapter outlines the interplay of 6G tech- nology and political-industrial governance in different scenarios for the future of sovereignty. Part IV Implications for the Future Chapter 11 A view to beyond 6G adopts a futures research approach and applies causal layered analysis to presented 6G visions, focusing on different national perspectives between China, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and the USA. The chapter identifies the assumptions behind mobile communications, analyzes the different national visions and presents, based on the multiple ideologies and epistemes of the stake- holders, transformed futures beyond 6G mobile communications. The chapter concludes with policy implications for developing global mobile communications. Finally, summarizing the discussions in the preceding 11 chapters, Chapter 12 Opportunities and implications related to future mobile communications focuses on the research, managerial, and policymaking opportunities and implications related to future mobile communica- tions. Acknowledgements Writing and editing “The Changing World of Mobile Communications: 5G, 6G and the Future of Digital Services” has been one big team project of editors and co-authors working diligently together on developing the chapters, while coordinating and sharing knowledge in making state-of-the-art contributions for a holistic publication on the emergence, impact, and scenarios of 5G and 6G. Accordingly, huge thanks are due to all the book’s co-authors! This research has been supported by the Academy of Finland, 6G Flag- ship program under Grant 346208. This book would not have been possible without the funding, support, and the network and especially the commu- nity of the 6G Flagship program at the University of Oulu, Finland. The 6G Flagships builds on the “6G vision for 2030: Our future society is data-driven, enabled by near-instant and unlimited wireless connectivity. Developing products, services and vertical applications for the future digitized society requires a multi- disciplinary approach and a re-imagining of how we create, deliver and consume 1 Introduction to the Book 11 data and services.” A special thank you Matti Latva-aho and Ari Pouttu for the support and funding provided! In addition, this book has been partially supported by the LNETN project (Legitimation of newness and its impact on EU agenda for change) from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 860364. However, “behind the scenes” of the book are several key people who have played vital roles in its making. We would like to thank Alec Selwyn and Arunaa Devi from Palgrave MacMillan for a very fruitful and effective collab- oration on developing, editing, printing, and launching the book. Second, we want to thank Bea Longhurst for all her hard work in remaking and redesigning all the figures of the book and for achieving a professional and unified info- graphic look. Finally, we thank Gareth Attwood and Rupert Moreton from Acolad for their professional and effective high-quality proofreading of the chapters. Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 2 The Evolution of Mobile Communications Seppo Yrjölä, Marja Matinmikko-Blue, and Petri Ahokangas Natural selection will not remove ignorance from future generations. (Richard Dawkins) S. Yrjölä (B) Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland e-mail: seppo.yrjola@oulu.fi; seppo.yrjola@nokia.com Nokia, Oulu, Finland M. Matinmikko-Blue Infotech Oulu Focus Institute and Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland e-mail: marja.matinmikko@oulu.fi © The Author(s) 2024 P. Ahokangas and A. Aagaard (eds.), The Changing World of Mobile Communications, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33191-6_2 13 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-031-33191-6_2&domain=pdf mailto:seppo.yrjola@oulu.fi mailto:seppo.yrjola@nokia.com mailto:marja.matinmikko@oulu.fi https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33191-6_2 14 S. Yrjölä et al. The Historical Development of Mobile Communications Worldwide digitalization has been enabled by the successive mobile communications generations over the past three decades. Each gener- ation has introduced new use cases and technical capabilities, while optimizing the use cases of the previous generation. Overall, technology can be seen to serve an enabling role in mobile communications. In this historical development, the commercialization cycle of mobile commu- nications has followed three steps: (1) definition, (2) standardization and implementation, and (3) deployment and use. At the definition stage, the innovation from companies and research organizations is medi- ated together with national authorities in the global ITU-R (Interna- tional Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication sector) to form a framework and develop usage scenarios for the radio aspects of mobile communications technology. After the definition of the requirements for the radio interface at the ITU-R, standardization bodies and firms nego- tiate standardization and implementation via standard releases that are the basis for the implementations by different technology vendors. As the technical systems and solutions needed in a technology generation have been developed, they are deployed and utilized by the mobile oper- ators in different business implementations (Ahokangas et al., 2023). This deployment and use are, however, delimited by regulation as the telecommunications is a highly regulated field. This chapter provides an overview and brief introduction to the mobile communications industry. The chapter will start with a brief description of technological development in the field in different tech- nology generations from the first to sixth generation and discuss the role of standardization in this development. Next, the chapter will provide P. Ahokangas Martti Ahtisaari Institute, Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland e-mail: petri.ahokangas@oulu.fi mailto:petri.ahokangas@oulu.fi 2 The Evolution of Mobile Communications 15 a short introduction to the role of regulation in mobile communica- tions. The chapter will conclude with a characterization of the mobile communications business. This chapter serves as a starting point for the discussions presented in the subsequent chapters. Technological Developments from 1G to 5G From the first generation, the mobile network system architecture has been defined by the radio access technology, access and core network routing, and the associated services related to voice, messaging, data transfer, mobility, authentication, and access control. After the first generation (1G) analog voice only service, the second generation (2G) introduced a digital mobile system with text messaging and mobile phones as a personal portable device in addition to a voice service. The third generation (3G) with mobile broadband data brought access to mobile multimedia and significantly lowered the cost of the voice service. The fourth generation (4G) expanded the multimedia service offering across digital industries built around smart phones. 4G lowered the cost of data while introducing video to consumers and machine-type communications to serve vertical industries. The ongoing deployment of the fifth generation (5G) has drastically increased the number of communicating objects (David & Berndt, 2018). For consumers inter- active low-cost video and for enterprises the industrial IoT (Internet of Things) are paving the way toward human augmentation and digital- physical fusion. Up to 4G mobile communications, the connectivity business has remained surprisingly unchanged allowing the incumbent mobile network operators (MNOs) to dominate the market, although they have been seriously challenged by the content-owning, cloud-based over-the-top (OTT) Internet giants (Ahokangas et al., 2013). For 5G, the ITU-R vision framework for international mobile telecommunications IMT-2020 and beyond presented in (ITU-R, 2020) adopted a service-centric approach to the 5G use case definition. The IMT-2020 vision identified three services classes, enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) targeted at consumers, ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) for mission-critical services for organizations 16 S. Yrjölä et al. such as factories, and massive machine-type communications (mMTC) to connect IoT. The fifth generation mobile network 5G new radio (NR) solution was standardized by 3GPP in release 15 and commer- cially deployed in 2019 based on the non-standalone (NSA) architecture where a 5G radio access network (RAN) operates on a legacy 4G LTE core network. Innovations in a new user equipment (UE), radio access network (RAN), and 5G core (5GC) designs enable substantial improve- ments across the main service domains eMBB, URLLC, and mMTC. In particular, the new active antenna beam-based physical layer RAN design allows operation in higher frequencies up to mmWaves with wider bandwidths. The 5G system architecture including the 5GC became available from 2020 as standalone (SA) enabling the deployment of private enterprise and industrial 5G networks (Parkvall et al., 2017). The 5G standard evolution in releases 16 and 17, as depicted in Fig. 2.1, expands the 5G ecosystem particularly for industrial domain via innovations such as time sensitive communication, small data trans- mission, and UE energy saving. 3GPP work on release 18 5G-Advanced (5GA) is due in 2024 and the first deployments are expected around 2025 (Chen et al., 2022). 5GA will provide an intelligent network plat- form utilizing machine learning (ML) to adapt to its environment, new classes of devices and enhance support for novel applications such as truly mobile extended reality (XR) services. Furthermore, 5GA will embed high-precision location, presence and timing technologies, and device innovations will make drone optimized and non-terrestrial networks (NTN) such as satellite connectivity a commonplace feature. For the Industrial Internet of things (IIoT) ecosystem, the release will offer connections from low-cost and low-data rate to extremely low latency with pinpoint accuracy (Lin, 2022). In previous generations, the end-to-end network provided the same service to all users and the only option to offer guaranteed provision for a critical application, e.g., for public safety or critical infrastruc- ture services was to deploy a dedicated physical network. In the 5GC network, network slicing allows operators to create thousands of virtual, independent networks within the same physical network infrastructure that connect from the device through to the application. Network slicing 2 The Evolution of Mobile Communications 17 Fi g . 2. 1 Ex p ec te d 3 G PP s ta n d ar d iz at io n t im el in e an d I TU -R p ro ce ss f o r IM T sy st em s 18 S. Yrjölä et al. enables operators to efficiently package novel 5G network capabili- ties into differentiated, guaranteed service level agreement-based (SLA) services in a cost-effective way. The 5GA platform is visioned to introduce and extend a variety of novel applications and use cases across industries in 2025, and beyond (see, e.g., Ghosh et al., 2019; Nakamura, 2020). • Extended mobile reality and ubiquitously available cloud gaming requires compact power-efficient devices supported by time critical communication capabilities. • Wearable technology and devices demand a small form factor, effi- ciency, and high battery life. • Industrial process monitoring and quality control are based on a massive volume of small data that should be transmitted frequently and efficiently to support network performance. • Critical infrastructures such as public safety, railways and utilities with ultra-reliable low-latency communication combined with security and privacy requirements. • Asset tracing and tracking in logistics demands extremely low energy consumption. • Tele-operation of autonomous vehicles, robots, and drones demands reliable and secure communications both for the control and payload data. • Location applications of connected devices with centimeter-level accu- racy is enabled by advanced indoor and outdoor positioning technolo- gies. • Resilient, deterministic, and more stringent timing of 5G networks will be made affordably available and leveraged, e.g., in industrial automation to real-time financial transactions. For 6G, ITU-R is working to publish the global framework for IMT toward 2030 and beyond in 2023 that will provide the basis for defining the future 6G. 2 The Evolution of Mobile Communications 19 Standardization The worldwide success of mobile communications from the first genera- tion onward can be seen to be largely founded on the initially proprietary technologies that have subsequently been transferred into a series of standards. Each new technology generation has required a decade of billions of euros investment in research and development to formalize technological innovations into standards and further into hardware and software products and services. Technology standardization has helped to generate foundational innovation platforms upon which emerging tech- nology vendors have developed their products and services. From 1G onward, a similar standard release process has been followed providing standard blueprints for stakeholders to contribute and develop products and network solutions. The stakeholder community for the development has been well defined and stable consisting of a limited number of tech- nology vendors, mobile network operators, system integrators, as well as academia and regulators. With 5G, the technology ecosystem has been expanded particularly toward enterprises and industries introducing an unprecedented number of use cases and related novel stakeholder groups. Moreover, it should be acknowledged that 5G standardization deviates from previous gener- ations having a coordinated single worldwide major approach to the IMT-2020 requirements. 3G (IMT-2000) was defined by three alter- native paths (3GPP UMTS, 3GPP2 CDMA2000 and IEEE mobile WIMAX) and 4G (IMT-Advanced) with 3GPP LTE and IEEE mobile WIMAX alternatives that initially did not have an obvious single winner. Furthermore, 5G service-based architecture with open interfaces, the convergence of communication, information technology and data (ICDT), and user developer centricity will challenge the establish 3GPP grounded IMT process. Recent geopolitical and societal changes—espe- cially related to discussions on data colonialization, user rights, and the use of artificial intelligence, and the digitalization of society and critical infrastructures—have given rise to discussions on the role of nations in standardization. The ongoing technology battle has specif- ically concerned the leadership in 5G regarding semiconductors, and concerns over sovereignty regarding AI and digital technologies have 20 S. Yrjölä et al. become an issue (Moerel & Timmers, 2021). As a recent example, the US “Clean network initiative” in 2020 addressed the long-term threat to data privacy, security, human rights, and principled collaboration to free the world from authoritarian malign actors (US Government, 2020). These developments raise the question of the possible fragmentation of the 6G standardization. Role of Patents and Licensing For a half-century, all major mobile communications technology providers have relied on patent licensing as their main value capture mechanism. The European telecommunications standards institute (ETSI) has orchestrated the development and governance of standards, controlling the technology contributors to make licenses available on a fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) basis for a wide variety of implementers globally. The unique combination of technology co-development and widespread global adoption have been enabled by a nonexclusive licensing model. In addition to standard essential patent (SEP) royalties which have created a continuous incentive for standard contributions, technology vendors have leveraged complementarities via adjacent intellectual property (Teece, 2019). The collaborative approach has empowered a downstream innovation and a mobile technology and application ecosystem. The standards- compliant ecosystem comprises dedicated technology/chipset firms, infrastructure equipment providers, mobile network operators, device manufacturers, operating system software providers, application devel- opers, and content providers. Many specialized technology firms and vertically integrated companies in the mobile communications industry increasingly engage with two or more roles. Contrary to the single company-owned web-scale “winner-takes-all” digital platforms, harmo- nized common standards in mobile communications have helped define platforms with many stacked software layers. A detailed look at the ETSI IPR online database (ETSI IPR) reveals that most 5G patents were declared between 2017 and 2019, and 25% of them were evolutionarily declared already for 4G. The database indicates 2 The Evolution of Mobile Communications 21 that radio access networks (RAN), comprising the radio performance, physical layer, radio resource management specification, specification of the access network interfaces, the definition of the operations, and management requirements and conformance testing for user equipment and base stations encompasses about 84% of the SEPs. Physical layers 1 and layer 2 alone add up to 70% of SEPs. Services and systems aspects (SA) covering the overall architecture encompasses approximately only 11% of SEPs despite their leading role in security, management, orches- tration, charging, and mission-critical applications areas. The remaining approximately 5% of SEPs are encompassed in the core network and terminals (CT) domain where differentiation and user experience have traditionally been implemented via technology system integration and overall network design, management, and orchestration. All in all, what matters is the device relevance found to be 80–90% of all the SEPs, which is in line with the distribution of licensing royalties (Yrjölä et al., 2022). With a massive diffusion into new application areas and expanding the circle of stakeholders and licensees in the 6G era, firms may increasingly cooperate vertically in open dynamic multi-layered archi- tectures while competing horizontally to capture value across services. The resulting complex licensing landscape will necessitate more precise rules for FRAND licensing as the exact interpretation and the associated reasonable licensing fees are not precisely defined in the current model (Teece, 2019). The extension toward cross-layered architecture function- alities and including data and algorithms will lead to the convergence of multiple connected ecosystems, introducing new roles and actors, especially related to system integration, management, and orchestration (Yrjölä et al., 2021). Flexibility, scalability, and efficiency requirements combined with the long-tailed distribution needs of applications, may lead the 6G system to only specify a few core capabilities for the lower system layers with related open interfaces. Thus, higher layer distinct use case specifica- tions for a complete connectivity platform will be done by different actors. For scalability and replicability among connectivity services, the lower-layer processing-intensive radio functions may continue to be spec- ified by global standardization and continued to be implemented in 22 S. Yrjölä et al. custom silicon chipsets. On the other hand, the modular architecture with open interface specifications will enable the rest of the softwarized, programmable, and virtualized functions to be deployed on any commer- cial computing hardware. This will facilitate competition and entry, enabling stakeholders to access complementary assets through various forms of alliance with larger firms as well as to specialize within the ecosystem and develop complements to the platform. This suggests that value should be captured increasingly across multiple protocol layers and levels of the industry, and that the role of the de facto standard will need to be revised. Standards for systemic and complex general- purpose technologies, as Fig. 2.2 summarizes, will require coopetitive (i.e., simultaneous collaboration and competition) development to gain interoperability across ecosystems and industries. One of the key challenges related to profiting from technological inno- vations in the 6G era is the protection and enforcement of intellectual property while fostering wide diffusion in the ecosystem. For example, starting from the discussion about who should acquire and pay for an SEP license: the OEMs, end-product manufacturers, or connectivity and application module suppliers. It will be essential to find a ruling that avoids the courts’ protracted resolution of licensing disputes, ensures adequate compensation for developers, and promotes widespread use of innovations through appropriate fees. A compromised ETSI FRAND model and a more proprietary vertically integrated model with the reduced IP protection may be priced into products and services (Teece, 2019) and severely reduce the existing significant positive externalities that mobile communications technologies offer and place the envisioned 6G role as a general-purpose technology at risk. Regulatory Developments The mobile communications sector is tightly regulated. Regulation takes place at national, regional, and international levels via different methods and focus areas. One fundamental area is spectrum regulation, because the radio spectrum is the most critical natural resource needed for all wireless communications (Anker, 2017). Mobile communication 2 The Evolution of Mobile Communications 23 Fi g . 2 .2 Th e tr an sf o rm at io n o f te ch n o lo g y in n o va ti o n a cr o ss 6 G s ys te m a rc h it ec tu re la ye rs s te m s fr o m t h e 3r d G en er at io n Pa rt n er sh ip P ro je ct ( 3G PP ) sy st em a rc h it ec tu re ( A d ap te d f ro m Y rj ö lä e t al ., 20 22 ) 24 S. Yrjölä et al. networks need spectrum to operate on and so do all other wireless communication systems such as satellites and terrestrial broadcasting, among others. However, if they use the same spectrum resources, there can be harmful interference that leads to significant service degradations. As a result, different wireless systems have traditionally sought their own exclusive use of the radio spectrum, which has been the foundation for mobile communications. At the global level, the ITU-R sets requirements for systems to become part of the IMT family, that currently comprises 3G, 4G and 5G systems. At the regional level, coordination takes place between countries in specific regional organizations. In Europe, countries belonging to the European Union follow the European electronic communications code (EECC) directive, which defines the rules for electronic communication networks and services, and the spectrum used for mobile communi- cations is harmonized. Many regulatory topics are a national matter including the actual spectrum awards determining who can deploy mobile communications networks and how. National level regulations consider international and regional approaches and define regulations that are considered appropriate in the country in question. Spectrum Regulation Spectrum regulation in particular plays a fundamental role in defining how, where, and when the developed technology is used and for what purpose (Matinmikko et al., 2014). Spectrum decisions made at the international, regional, and national levels significantly impact the resulting markets and the mobile communication sector is no excep- tion. For mobile communications, every new technology generation has secured access to new spectrum, which has been internationally harmo- nized, leading to economies of scale by using the same equipment in larger markets. Market regulations aim to achieve competitive markets where more than one MNO serves the end user customers in a country. Markets are directly impacted by spectrum regulatory decisions, especially via the 2 The Evolution of Mobile Communications 25 rules in awarding of licenses. These national spectrum awarding deci- sions, which typically use spectrum auctions for mobile communications, significantly influence how many MNOs can operate in a country and how competitive the market is. Additionally, access regulation with rights and obligations concerning interconnection has a major influence on the markets. Regulatory developments at the ITU-R regarding IMT-2000, IMT- Advanced and IMT-2020 systems have defined the development paths for 3G, 4G and 5G systems. The phases of regulatory development proceed from identifying technology trends and traffic characteristics to defining a joint vision, followed by detailed requirements definition, against which technology proposals are then evaluated. Finally, tech- nology proposals that fulfill the requirements defined by the ITU-R become members of the IMT family and gain access to spectrum bands that are allocated to the mobile service and identified for IMT systems. The spectrum identification process goes in parallel with the IMT system process ranging from identifying spectrum needs based on market studies to studying candidate bands and their feasibility toward spectrum allocation decisions that are made at the World Radiocommunication Conferences (WRCs) of the ITU-R. Regarding 6G, the process for IMT toward 2030 and beyond, which corresponds to 6G, is underway at the ITU-R. The technology trends have been identified and the report on future technology trends was published in 2022 (ITU-R, 2022). Work on the framework recom- mendation is ongoing and is expected to be completed in June 2023, presenting new usage scenarios for 6G. After WRC-23, which could develop an agenda item for the 6G spectrum for the following WRC in 2027 (WRC-27), the actual requirements definition phase will start in 2024. The requirements and needed evaluation criteria and processes will be finalized by the end of 2026. Technology proposals on 6G are expected in 2027–2028 with decisions taking place in 2029. Regarding 6G, standardization phase 1 will likely start from 2025, leading to the first 6G specification in 3GPP Release 21 by 2028 and followed by commercial deployments around 2030. Meanwhile 5G will be enhanced by 5G-Advanced, which will be key focus for 3GPP in Release 18 and19 onward and will power commercial public and private 26 S. Yrjölä et al. networks starting in 2025. 5G-Advanced will provide new 5G features and boost 5G capabilities in four dimensions: experience, extension, expansion, and operational excellence. The Evolution of the Business of Mobile Communications The mobile communications industry has for long been referred to as an ecosystem (Zhang & Liang, 2011). In the current 4G-dominated world that is transitioning toward 5G dominance, the ecosystem comprises hardware providers, software providers, mobile equipment and infras- tructure providers, content and application providers, network operators, content providers, OTT (over-the-top) Internet players, service providers such as MNOs (mobile network operators) and MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators), network infrastructure constructors, facility owners, regulatory bodies, and end users (Pujol et al., 2016). However, the way the ecosystem has been seen has changed over the history of mobile communication generations. Latva-aho and Leppänen (2019) listed 29 different stakeholders for the envisioned 6G ecosystem, categorizing them into human, machine, enterprise, and public-sector type users, each with different demands and needs. In addition, they divided the stakeholders to have two different roles. Resource and asset stakeholders comprise device suppliers, network/ cloud infra vendors, complementary technology providers, national regu- lators, public sector, government, data owners, context providers, content providers, context owners, edge cloud, data center, facility owner, site supplier, and building constructors. Meanwhile, matching and bridging stakeholders included mobile virtual network operators, mobile network operators, fixed operators, satellite operators, vertical-specific service providers, roaming service providers, application providers, digital twin providers, management service providers, data brokers, network resource brokers, broking/bridging providers, trust providers, and providers of security as a service. 2 The Evolution of Mobile Communications 27 From Value Chain to Business Ecosystem Thus, the value chain in the mobile communication sector has evolved over the technology generations. The 2G era included state-owned MNOs and the market was opened to competition from new private MNOs. The value chain in 2G typically consisted of network infras- tructure vendors, MNOs, device vendors, end users, and the regulator as depicted in Fig. 2.3. 3G introduced mobile broadband, which made new services and applications available over the networks. Otherwise, the value chain remained as it was in 2G, but competition increased in several markets with new market entry, leading to market consolida- tion later. 4G brought mobile broadband on a large scale and MNO networks became bit pipes for OTT services. In the 4G era, the role of OTT services increased and the number of MNOs per country decreased as a result of acquisitions by the MNOs. The 5G era has introduced local networks deployed by different stakeholders, which has opened the market for new local entry. This development is still ongoing and varies a great deal between countries (Matinmikko et al., 2018). Local 5G networks have created local vertical specific ecosystems around their deployment areas where the stakeholders and their roles vary. Examples of this include the port and factory ecosystems. From Engineering Platform to Service Modularity and Ecosystem The definition of 5G opened the opportunity to change from connec- tivity-centric business models toward various connectivity with bundled content (data-based), context (location-based or service-specific), and commerce (platform) business models and offering the whole network as a service (NaaS). In parallel to this development, a disruption in the deployment models of mobile communication networks took place in the 5G era disrupting the ecosystem by enabling new entrants, such as utilities, ports, and manufacturing plants, to run their own local private 28 S. Yrjölä et al. Fi g . 2. 3 Th e va lu e ch ai n i n 2 G , 3G , 4G ( u p p er p ar t o f th e fi g u re ), a n d 5 G ( lo w er p ar t o f th e fi g u re ) 2 The Evolution of Mobile Communications 29 5G networks (Matinmikko et al., 2017). Additionally, other technolo- gies such as cloud computing, AI, and Web3 have started to converge with or complement 5G introducing cloud computing “the fifth C” into the 4C business model characterization framework (Wirtz et al., 2010) as depicted in Fig. 2.4. Figure 2.4 illustrates the evolutionary view of the mobile communi- cations system from the 4G engineering connectivity platform via 5G Fig. 2.4 From engineering platforms toward service modularity and ecosystem platforms 30 S. Yrjölä et al. service modularity toward 6G connectivity platform-based ecosystem. In the 5C framework, the connection layer includes physical and virtualized communication network infrastructures for the ecosystemic value propo- sition of exchanging information. The newly introduced cloud computing infrastructure is an essential enabler for a variety of data and intelligence- based services. The third content layer aims to collect, select, compile, distribute, and present data in the ecosystem in a value-adding, conve- nient, and user-friendly way. In the context layer, the aim is to provide a structure, increase transparency, and reduce complexity by providing a platform for stakeholders’ communication and transaction. Finally, the commerce layer focuses on negotiation, initiation, payment, and service and product deliveries in the ecosystem, enabling low transaction costs and providing a cost-effective marketplace for matching and bridging supply and demand. Despite massive investment in the current mobile communica- tion networks, the MNOs’ opportunities for differentiation have been limited. The differentiation capacity has shifted toward devices and content and the mobile operating systems have become bottleneck assets in the mobile ecosystem. 5G can be seen as a service modular platform system stemming from interfaces that enable complementary offerings of elements and services. The digital platform business model enables software developers to add value through applications and complemen- tary assets to the ecosystem by attracting users and building network effects. The ecosystemic 6G connectivity platform-based model facili- tates value co-creation, co-capturing, and sharing to maximize the overall value generated and acquired not only by a focal traditional incumbent MNO but also by the ecosystem’s stakeholders. The 6G ecosystem can be seen both as an innovation engineering platform and e-commerce trans- action platform (Evans & Gawer, 2016). This will enable digital business ecosystems to facilitate exchanges of otherwise fragmented groups of consumers and/or firms and to provide a technology and distribution system for other companies to base their technological and service inno- vations. Introduced service modularity on 5G platforms will on one hand enable fast-paced autonomous innovation, but on the other hand 2 The Evolution of Mobile Communications 31 it will change the appropriability mechanism by reducing the role of complementary core assets. Technological Architecture as a Starting Point In 6G, the systemic architecture level innovations will be vital in enabling business model changes. Key transformational bottleneck assets such as AI/ML and human–machine interfaces (HMI) as general-purpose tech- nologies will be leveraged across distributed a heterogeneous 6G cloud architecture. Intelligent 6G networks are based on common enablers for AI as a service, and federated learning as-a-service that leverage data acquisition, data exposure and a common cross-domain analytics framework. Intelligent network enablers will operate across the cloud continuum from the central cloud to the edge and to far edge including the UE. Extreme scalability and flexibility will become the new paradigm in 6G. Network automation and orchestration will be integral parts of intelligent networks using AI and analytics to manage and orchestrate the networks in a fully automated manner across all layers and parts of the network abstraction (Kaloxylos et al., 2021). The primary focus in the current 4G and early 5G deployments has been on network planning, network diagnostics, and network optimization and control reducing capital expenditure, optimizing network performance, and building new revenue streams through the improved customer experience. 6G radios are envisioned to adopt AI/ ML in a fundamental way for optimized air interface design, cogni- tive dynamic spectrum use, and context awareness. On the network level, hyper-specialized agile slicing will call for new fully AI automatized service management and orchestration for network automation, allowing dynamic adaptation of network resources according to changing service requests, reducing the deployment time of new services and mitiga- tion of failures, and significantly reducing operating expenditure. Digital trust, enabled by quantum computing and distributed Web3 ledger tech- nologies such as blockchain and smart contracts, will provide businesses securely and predictably with world-class cybersecurity, public safety, and fintech solutions. 32 S. Yrjölä et al. Human augmentation will enable people to interact with and within the digital world. This will include VR headsets, XR glasses, remote control with haptics, and, in the future brain-machine interfaces and connected bio-medical implants. The fusion between the digital and physical realms will further enhance our capabilities to interact with dynamic representations of real-world objects, systems, and processes in the digital world such as digital twins and 6G network sensing data. Downstream digital application platforms will converge and there will be multimodal engagement with media, and the physicality of lived expe- riences will be seamlessly accessible through a HMI extended to all five senses, including the senses of touch and taste. Individual and collabora- tive users will seamlessly be able to switch between any form of immersive mobile extended reality, encompassing virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality, comprising both virtual and augmented objects. HMI opportunities will be clearly differentiated between the consumer, the enterprise, and the industrial segment. Toward the 6G World Disruptions on multiple levels are a visible part of both organizational life as well as economic reality these days (e.g., Buckley, 2019). In the last few years, global industries have faced disruptions in the form of the China-US trade war, the technological war between different centers of power especially in emergent industries (Chin, 2019; Lukin, 2019; Petricevic & Teece, 2019), COVID-19, and more recently the Russia- Ukraine war. As a result, in recent times, we have witnessed a plethora of terms emerging; out of which the most famous is VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) as a permanent feature of the current economy (Bennett & Lemoine, 2014; Millar et al., 2018) espe- cially in industries which are significantly intertwined with global value creation. In this context, mobile communications is one of the sectors that has been very visibly linked to most elements of global disruptions because of its criticality to the economic competitiveness as well as its visible interlinkage to the emergent digital business models (Kilkki et al., 2018). A well-known example in this regard is the Chinese telecom giant 2 The Evolution of Mobile Communications 33 Huawei which has received bans and strict oversight in different Western countries including USA due to the concerns about privacy and security. As the shift toward 6G is taking shape globally, there is a race for setting the standards, and geopoliticalGeopolitical disruptions (and considera- tions) are a core aspect of this debate (Klement, 2021; Yrjölä et al., 2020). At the same time, it is vital to stress that the influence of a variety of global disruptions on 6G development and planned implementation has not been studied specifically so far; thereby showing a visible gap in the extant literature. A Business Architecture Perspective In the engineering tradition, platforms have been seen as modular tech- nological designs for facilitating innovation, whereas in the economics tradition platforms have been seen as two- or multi-sided markets connecting supply and demand. The traditional approach to a mobile communications ecosystem is based on a layered protocol-based tech- nical infrastructure, an engineering platform consisting of elements and interfaces. As in digitalized industries in general, in mobile communica- tions, business models can be seen to follow the nature of integration— vertical or horizontal (Ballon, 2007). The previous 4G and 5G business architectures have considered the ecosystem configuration either through vertical or horizontal business models as depicted in Fig. 2.5. In the vertical business model , traditionally employed in mobile communications, a firm controls its suppliers, distributors, or retail locations as part of its supply chain. To be competitive in this supply- sided model, a firm focuses on creating value for its customers, and is grounded inside its selected verticals. On the 4G engineering platform, a competitive advantage arises from focusing on value creation within narrow segments around connectivity and content (Ahokangas et al., 2019). As interfaces in mobile communications have been largely defined from the inside-out perspective, the telco APIs have not reached the developers’ ecosystem, and infrastructure providers have been control- ling the complete technology and service solution (Basole & Karla, 34 S. Yrjölä et al. Fi g . 2. 5 Ev o lu ti o n f ro m v er ti ca l an d h o ri zo n ta l b u si n es s lo g ic s to w ar d o b liq u e va lu e cr ea ti o n a n d v al u e ca p tu re i n 6 G (A d ap te d f o rm Y rj ö lä e t al ., 20 22 ) 2 The Evolution of Mobile Communications 35 2011). In the industry transition from 4G to 5G, the vertical integra- tion strategy has been clearly visible with the acquisition of business operations within the same vertical. Deployed incumbent-born mobile communications connectivity platforms have typically been upstream platforms and dependent on the core product (Pundziene et al., 2022) and slow to respond to market dynamics. The introduction of 5G has transformed the traditional vertical busi- ness model approaches of the mobile sector toward a horizontal model (Cave, 2018). The horizontal business model , adopted in consumer service-oriented businesses, to serve a wide clientele across different segments focuses on economies of scale and scope in order to maxi- mize the value capture. This demand-side approach enables multiple stakeholders to focus on their respective fields through a common frame- work that allows faster innovations and a rapid scale-up of applications and businesses. Technological innovations, extreme cost consciousness, and risk awareness have been characteristic in capturing customer value while defending a position against competition. The horizontal 5G busi- ness models are highly dependent on the supporting infrastructure and complementors to run smoothly. The introduced service-based archi- tecture (SBA) with softwarization and cloudification technology has enabled demand-side platformization (Camps-Aragó et al., 2019) that enables innovative as-a-service business models to serve a wider value constellation (Hmoud et al., 2020). The novel serverless cloud-native model allows developers to build and run applications without having to manage servers. IT and cloud Webscalers’ platform-born adjacent plat- forms can serve downstream users via transformative service innovations (Pundziene et al., 2022). In the 6G era, the vertical integration in the value chain and/or horizontal diversification to any segment is unlikely as digital service chains are becoming more distributed, abstracted, and advanced built on resources provided as-a-service. Concepts centered around network-as-a- service (NaaS) will be very mature by 2030, and everything that can be offered as a service will be (Yrjölä et al., 2022). Cloud native design, open source, and standards will drive openness in the architecture of networks and operations, while enabling technologies such as hyper-specialized 36 S. Yrjölä et al. virtualization and slicing, abstracted data, while analytics capabilities will provide the right building blocks (Yrjölä et al., 2021). Simple-to- consume low-code/no-code APIs and network-as-a-code, backed by new levels of AI/ML-driven automation will be the enablers of new business and revenue for all players. This will require increased coopetition among network function vendors, network service providers, application service providers, and hyperscale companies, within an evolved ecosystem. In modern IT and software development, DevOps and infrastructure-as-a- code (IaC) are already mainstream, and SW developers are the drivers of a new kind of innovation and service delivery (Morris, 2016). This multi- sided platform-of-platforms model integrates the supply and demand side and can be seen to form a sharing economy. Wide adoption and maturity of business-to-business marketplaces are emerging for enter- prises and IT in hyperscale cloud ecosystems. These developments will define the traction for telco exposure and abstraction with mobile in moving toward hybrid oblique business models. The oblique business model views 6G as a general-purpose technology and envisages network- as-a-code for developers. A loosely coupled oblique business model (Amit & Zott, 2015; Saebi & Foss, 2015) can be seen to follow the rationales of open innovation (Chesbrough, et al., 2014) and the timely concept of a sharing economy in which resource efficiency plays a crucial role (Stephany, 2015). In the 6G era, business models will not be built on one-sided technology or in industry silos, because it will be essential to consider the lifecycle stage of complementors, customers, and partners in the ecosystem. In a value-sharing economy, a cumulative, open-sourced effort of a community of developers will turn customers’, and ecosystems’ underutilized assets into more efficient or better used assets with fast- to-market strategies (Bogers & West, 2012; Chesbrough et al., 2014). Stakeholder interactions will aim to achieve common strategic objectives and eventually share a common fate and will no longer be based on customer–supplier relationships, (Iansiti & Levien, 2004). The oblique 6G business model characteristics will enable a novel born-platform approach, which will be a stand-alone multi-sided platform type of architecture building on a digital platform value proposition from the beginning of a new venture aiming at new market creation (Nambisan, 2017; Pundziene et al., 2022). 2 The Evolution of Mobile Communications 37 Implications Despite the wide streams of platform and ecosystem business litera- ture, little effort has been made to advance a coherent theory on hybr