MWC Shanghai 2026: Gulf operators look to U6GHz as the next step in 5G Advanced evolution

Why U6GHz matters for 5G Advanced

Among the technologies highlighted at MWC Shanghai was upper 6GHz spectrum, which Huawei sees as a key enabler for commercial 5G Advanced services.

While most existing 5G deployments across the Gulf region have been built around mid-band spectrum in the 3.5 GHz range, operators are now seeking additional bandwidth to unlock the full capabilities promised by 5G Advanced.

Mohamed Madkour, vice-president of ICT strategy and marketing at Huawei, said operators in the GCC are already moving towards the next phase of network evolution. “The most common spectrum band for 5G today is 3.5GHz,” he said.

“As operators move towards 5G Advanced, additional spectrum becomes essential, and upper 6GHz is emerging as the new candidate.”

Madkour pointed to the UAE as an early example of that transition: “E& in the UAE recently commercialised what we believe is the world’s first upper 6GHz 5G Advanced network,” he said.

The deployment, announced in collaboration with the UAE’s Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA), aims to demonstrate peak downlink speeds exceeding 10Gbps by using 400MHz of bandwidth in the upper 6GHz spectrum.

According to Huawei, the deployment utilises a 256-transmit and receive antenna array architecture and represents the industry’s first pre-commercial implementation of U6GHz technology in a 5G Advanced network.

“With upper 6GHz spectrum, operators can reach speeds of up to 10Gbps,” said Madkour. “This is what 5G Advanced has promised.”

Huawei explains that the technology offers an attractive balance between capacity and coverage, combining wider bandwidth availability than conventional mid-band frequencies while avoiding some of the propagation limitations associated with millimetre wave deployments.

The company also claims that U6GHz can align with existing 3.5GHz network footprints, potentially allowing operators to increase capacity without extensive new site construction.

“This is the right bridge towards 6G,” said Madkour. “6G is a future technology generation, and upper 6GHz is a spectrum band that can help operators realise many of the capabilities envisioned for 5G Advanced.”

AI-native networks

Beyond radio access technologies, Huawei also outlined its broader vision for AI-native communications infrastructure. The company believes communications networks and computing networks are increasingly converging as AI workloads become more distributed.

Where previous generations of telecoms infrastructure focused primarily on transporting data, future networks may also need to support the dynamic scheduling of computing resources, distributed inference and cross-domain orchestration.

The company refers to this concept as “one-hop computing”, an architecture designed to minimise latency by providing direct access to computing resources through flattened optical network designs.

According to them, field deployments have shown that simplified all-optical architectures can reduce latency from tens of milliseconds to approximately one millisecond while improving computing utilisation.

Huawei also proposed what it describes as an AI-centric target network architecture, centred around a unified AI experience framework. Inspired by the Mean Opinion Score methodology historically used for voice services, the company has developed an AI MOS metric designed to evaluate AI applications based on three dimensions: availability, interactivity and intelligence.

Huawei believes future communications infrastructure should ultimately provide ubiquitous uplink rates of 20Mbps, peak uplink speeds approaching 1Gbps, downlink capabilities reaching 10 Gbps, and seamless service continuity across mobility scenarios.

A regional opportunity

For Gulf operators, U6GHz could represent more than just another spectrum expansion initiative. Governments across the UAE and Saudi Arabia are simultaneously investing in sovereign AI strategies, hyperscale datacentres, advanced cloud infrastructure and next-generation connectivity programmes.

As AI applications become increasingly dependent on deterministic communications, guaranteed service levels and ultra-low-latency performance, 5G Advanced deployments may provide operators with new opportunities to differentiate their offerings beyond traditional connectivity.

Madkour believes the region is particularly well-positioned to lead the next phase of mobile evolution. “The GCC has the vision in spectrum licensing,” he said. “This is becoming one of the key developments for the region.”

With operators across the Gulf seeking new ways to monetise network investments and support emerging AI-driven services, upper 6GHz spectrum may increasingly become a strategic asset in enabling the transition towards intelligent, high-capacity and AI-native communications infrastructure.