Abstract
In this article, we present the analysis of the digital divide to illustrate the unfair access to the benefits brought by information and communications technology (ICT) over the globe and provide our solution termed big communications (BigCom) to close the digital divide and democratize the benefits of ICT. To facilitate the implementation of BigCom, we give a complete framework of BigCom considering both technological and non-technological factors as well as a set of suggestions for content providers, mobile network operators, and governments. By implementing BigCom, we aim to connect the last 3.7 billion unconnected people living in far-flung and underdeveloped areas and achieve the goal of global and ubiquitous connectivity for everyone in the 6G era.
Highlights
As fifth generation (5G) communication networks are being deployed since 2019, researchers of communications science in academia and industry have started paying attention to sixth generation (6G) communications and studying the application scenarios as well as the corresponding performance goals (David and Berndt, 2018; Letaief et al, 2019; Dang et al, 2020)
Different from 5G that is primarily dedicated to satisfying the application scenarios in populous urban areas with the dense deployment of telecommunication infrastructure, 6G aims to serve the far-flung regions with much less population, physical infrastructure, and limited financial resources and close the digital divide in the 2030s (Yaacoub and Alouini, 2020)
With the support of big communications (BigCom) for 6G, it is expected that the global and ubiquitous connectivity will not become the privilege of residents in dense and urban areas and cover the 3.7 billion people living in underdeveloped areas
Summary
As fifth generation (5G) communication networks are being deployed since 2019, researchers of communications science in academia and industry have started paying attention to sixth generation (6G) communications and studying the application scenarios as well as the corresponding performance goals (David and Berndt, 2018; Letaief et al, 2019; Dang et al, 2020). With the rapid development of 5G information and communications technology (ICT), it is even difficult to believe that there are almost 3.7 billion people on the globe who are still unconnected or under-connected (Philbeck, 2017). Because of this surprising fact, researchers of ICT have reached a consensus that the benefits of ICT should be democratized over the world, rather than being reserved for urban and developed regions only (van Dijk, 2020). Particular through this perspective article, we aim to provide an inclusive framework different from existing technology-driven frameworks and provoke innovative thoughts and further investigations
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