Software-based evolution towards the 6G era in telecommunications
Wednesday, 4 June 2025, 11:00 – 12:30, room 0.A
Session Chair:
- Dimitris Tsolkas (Fogus Innovations & Services, GR)
- Silvia Almagia (ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute), )
- Javier Garcia Rodrigo (Telefonica, ES)
- Ricard Vilalta (CTTC (Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya),ES)
- Christos Tranoris (Univ. of Patras, GR)
Software has been an essential part towards efficient and effective operation of telecommunication systems. Especially in the 5G systems, the adoption of open and service-based design (e.g., the 5G SBA and the O-RAN principles) as well as the utilisation of cloud native infrastructures for hosting network operation, administration and management services, defined a new landscape where the 6G telecommunication systems should build upon.
Currently, major network advancements and technologies are being implemented, validated, and optimised in open-source software. This trend spans over any network domain and plane, including Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for seamless access to telco network capabilities (e.g., CAMARA1), network protocol stack (e.g., open5GS2), open functional split radio access network (e.g., O-RAN Software community3), connect and compute continuum (e.g., liqo4), service mesh paradigm (e.g., istio5), network exposure (e.g., ETSI OpenCAPIF6), software defined transport network (e.g., ETSI TeraFlowSDN7), network slice administration and management (e.g., ETSI OpenSlice8), service management and orchestration (e.g., ETSI Open Source MANO9) and many more.
However, higher levels of knowledge transfer and technological osmosis are needed, so that the agile and versioning-based software evolution process a) further supports long term research and innovation activities (bridging the work among different research projects) and b) meets key openness principles e.g., it is aligned to specifications from SDOs and it guarantees that industry keeps some implementation as discriminating factor of competitivity.
In this framework, the scope of the workshop is to highlight the role of software and open source in accelerating the development of standardized communication technologies, as well as to extract useful insights regarding the current impact of software and open source on 6G research community.
Programme
11:00 – 11:15: Talk by Christos Tranoris, Univ of Patras & Dimitris Tsolkas, Fogus Innovations & Services P.C.
Title of the talk:
APIs and frameworks for harnessing the full potential of 6G Networks
11:15 – 11:30: Talk by Sandor Laki, Eötvös Loránd University & George Makropoulos, NCSR Demokritos
Title of the talk:
Service and Resource Management Enablers for 6G
11:30 – 11:45: Talk by Antonio Skarmeta, Universidad de Murcia & João Paulo Barraca, Universidade de Aveiro
Title of the talk:
Security and Trust Enabling Solutions for 6G
11:45 – 12:25: Panel discussion
Topic: the role of software and open source in accelerating the development of standardized communication technologies. Different perspectives and directions will be shared by representatives from Academia, ETSI, and 6G-IA, including:
- Alexandros Kaloxylos, Executive Director 6G-IA
- Silvia Almagia, ETSI, Director of Software and Standards
- Javier Garcia Rodrigo, Operator, SNS Co-oP, R&D and Innovation Management, Telefonica
- Alfonso Carrillo, Principal Edge Solutions Architect, OpenNebula Systems
- Ricard Vilalta, chair of ETSI SDG TeraFlowSDN, CTTC (Research community and ETSI SDG)
- Christos Tranoris, chair of ETSI SDG OpenSlice, Univ. of Patras (Research community and ETSI SDG)
- Adlen Ksentini, Communication Systems Department, EURECOM
12:25 – 12:30: Closing remarks
