The key drivers for necessitating 6G can be categorized to societal, business ecosystems, technical and regulation related foreseen developments. In particular, United Nations Sustainability Development Goals (UN SDGs) alongside with accelerating digitalisation of societies are setting the needs and timescale for future development. A number of both value based and technical oriented KPIs have been identified and those will be utilized in the global 6G systems requirements to be defined by International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Local spectrum licensing enabling efficient development of new verticals allowing new businesses already in 5G clearly indicates how spectrum regulation should evolve in the future. Vertical applications needs will start to dominate the future evolution of wireless beyond mobile broadband placing us to cross-roads between a compromise one-solutionfits-all-verticals or customized solutions for some of the most critical future verticals.
Matti Latva-aho received the M.Sc., Lic.Tech. and Dr. Tech (Hons.) degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Oulu, Finland in 1992, 1996 and 1998, respectively. From 1992 to 1993, he was a Research Engineer at Nokia Mobile Phones, Oulu, Finland after which he joined Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC) at the University of Oulu. Prof. Latva-aho was Director of CWC during the years 1998-2006 and Head of Department for Communication Engineering until August 2014. Currently he serves as Academy of Finland Professor and is Director for National 6G Flagship Programme. His research interests are related to mobile broadband communication systems and currently his group focuses on 6G systems research. Prof. Latva-aho has published over 500 conference or journal papers in the field of wireless communications. He received Nokia Foundation Award in 2015 for his achievements in mobile communications research.