Dell'Oro Group has predicted that cumulative 6G RAN capex spend will exceed $500 billion by 2034.

The analyst firm also expects cumulative 6G RAN revenue to exceed $100bn in the same period between 2028 and 2034.

The company's forecast comes weeks after it released a report that outlined its expectations that 6G will act as an evolutionary technology that builds on Massive MIMO, the existing site grid, and wider channel bandwidths to deliver step-change improvements in RAN economics.

"While the G decoupling movement is gaining momentum for all the right reasons, the most likely scenario is still that 6G will be another G, with 6G RAN capex expected to accelerate toward the end of the decade," said Stefan Pongratz, vice president of RAN and telecom capex research at Dell’Oro Group.

"At the same time, operators are in a much stronger position today from a network capacity perspective than they were during the transition from 4G to 5G. As a result, cumulative 6G RAN revenue during the first six years of the cycle is projected to be 10 to 20 percent lower than during the comparable period of the 5G cycle."

Dell'Oro noted that 6G is not expected to expand the overall RAN market, though its baseline scenario projects the broader RAN market to grow at a one percent CAGR between 2030 and 2034.

6G isn't expected to launch until the latter part of this decade, but is predicted to incorporate AI into the RAN from the very beginning, something that the previous generations of technology, 4G and 5G, didn't initially do.

Dell'Oro stated in its report last month that AI and 6G should improve efficiency, though "gains will likely remain in the 10 percent to 50 percent range."

As for the spectrum set to be used, Dell'Oro said it's likely that both Sub-7GHz and cmWave spectrum bands are expected to play important roles in 6G deployments, while momentum for spectrum above 7GHz builds.