SoftBank Corp. Testing Terahertz Frequency to Realize Ultra-high Communication Speeds in 6G Era

While it has been about four years since SoftBank Corp. (TOKYO: 9434) launched commercial 5G services, SoftBank and the telecommunications industry are already looking ahead to 6G, a mobile communications technology expected to see commercial deployment around 2030. One anticipated 6G advancement is an improvement of enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) – a key feature of 5G – to achieve communication speeds that surpass 100 Gbps, which is hundreds of times faster than average 5G mobile phones today.

To realize these speeds, the use of new and broader frequency bands need to be explored. For 6G, this involves looking at utilizing the terahertz band (100 GHz - 10 THz), which has not previously been used for communication.

SoftBank's Research Institute of Advanced Technology is currently researching practical applications for terahertz communication with smartphones, and it conducted various tests to verify the propagation characteristics of terahertz radio waves, both indoors and outdoors. In a recent field trial, SoftBank confirmed the reliability of terahertz communication as a use case for connected cars.

In this deep dive, learn more about how the Research Institute of Advanced Technology is researching the terahertz frequency band for communication and testing new use cases.