6G Resilience White Paper
6G Research Visions, No. 15
Executive summary
6G must be designed to withstand, adapt to, and evolve amid prolonged, complex disruptions. Mobile networks’ shift from efficiency-first to sustainability-aware has motivated this white paper to assert that resilience is a primary design goal, alongside sustainability and efficiency, encompassing technology, architecture, and economics.
We promote resilience by analysing dependencies between mobile networks and other critical systems, illustrating how cascading failures spread through infrastructures. We formalise resilience in the context of mobile networks, distinguishing it from commonly associated concepts of reliability and robustness. Subsequently, we translate this into measurable capabilities: graceful degradation, situational awareness, rapid reconfiguration, and learning-driven improvement and recovery.
Architecturally, we promote edge-native and locality-aware designs, open interfaces, and programmability to enable islanded operations, fallback modes, and multi-layer diversity (radio, compute, energy, timing). Key enablers include AI-native control loops with verifiable behaviour, zero-trust security rooted in hardware and supply-chain integrity, and networking techniques that prioritise critical traffic, time-sensitive flows, and inter-domain coordination.
Executive summary Resilience also has a techno-economic aspect: open platforms and high-quality complementors generate externalities that enhance resilience while opening new markets. We identify nine business-model groups and several patterns aligned with our resilience definition, and we outline governance and standardisation needs.
This white paper serves as an initial step and catalyst for 6G Resilience. It aims to inspire researchers, professionals, government officials, and the public, providing them with the essential components to understand and shape the development of 6G Resilience.
Please cite:
Alves, H., Mahmood, N. H., López, O., Samarakoon, S., Yrjölä, S., Latva-aho, M., Juntti, M. & Pouttu, A. (Eds.) (2025). 6G Resilience White Paper [White paper]. (6G Research Visions, No. 15). University of Oulu. https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:oulu-202510276446
White Paper
Contributors
Editors
- Hirley Alves, University of Oulu, Finland
- Nurul H. Mahmood, University of Oulu, Finland
- Onel L. A. López, University of Oulu, Finland
- Sumudu Samarakoon, University of Oulu, Finland
- Seppo Yrjölä, University of Oulu, Finland
- Matti Latva-aho, University of Oulu, Finland
- Markku Juntti, University of Oulu, Finland
- Ari Pouttu, University of Oulu, Finland
List of contributors
- Armin Dekorsy, University of Bremen, Germany
- Arthur Sousa de Sena, University of Oulu, Finland
- Aydin Sezgin, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
- Bho Matthiesen, University of Bremen, Germany
- Chafika Benzaid, University of Oulu, Finland
- Chathuranga Weeraddana, University of Oulu, Finland
- David Hutchison, Lancaster University, United Kingdom
- Dileepa Marasinghe, University of Oulu, Finland
- Doğanalp Ergenç, TU Berlin, Germany
- Eduard Jorswieck, TU Braunschweig, Germany
- Erkki Harjula, University of Oulu, Finland
- Falko Dressler, TU Berlin, Germany
- Harri Saarnisaari, University of Oulu, Finland
- Italo Atzeni, University of Oulu, Finland
- Jaap Van De Beek, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden
- Jacek Rak, Gdańsk University of Technology, Poland
- Konstantin Mikhaylov, University of Oulu, Finland
- Lauri Lovén, University of Oulu, Finland
- Madhusanka Liyanage, University College Dublin, Ireland
- Marcos Katz, University of Oulu, Finland
- Marja Matinmikko-Blue, University of Oulu, Finland
- Mehdi Rasti, University of Oulu, Finland
- Mika Ylianttila, University of Oulu, Finland
- Nhan Nguyen, University of Oulu, Finland
- Pawani Porambage, VTT, Finland
- Petar Popovski, Aalborg University, Denmark
- Petri Ahokangas, University of Oulu, Finland
- Premanandana Rajatheva, University of Oulu, Finland
- Robert-Jeron Reifert, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
- Tharaka Hewa, University of Oulu, Finland
- Tommy Svensson, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
Reviewers
- Adrian Kliks, Poznań University of Technology, Poland
- Antonio Apiyo
- Chin-Tser Huang, University of South Carolina, USA
- Galyna Otlyvanska, Maynooth University, Ireland
- Hossein Fotouhi, Mälardalen University, Sweden
- José Olimpio Rodrigues Batista Jr., University of
São Paulo, Brazil - Markku-Juhani Saarinen, Tampere University, Finland
- Mathushaharan Rathakrishnan, Sri Lanka
- Oxana Gisca, University of Oulu, Finland
- Suzan Bayhan, University of Twente, Netherlands
- Vincent Audebert, EDF, France
- Xingxing Liao, Purple Mountain Laboratories, China
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