The goal is to halve the total energy consumption of mobile networks with 6G, which means that energy efficiency will have to improve by a factor of 40, if network traffic goes up by a factor of 20. "This requires some foundational research, and even if there are people that say we don't need 6G, we are saying 'yes, you do need 6G' because traffic analysis shows that 5G is going to run out of steam by the end of the decade," Vetter said. This, he emphasized, means 5G networks won't have the capacity to cope with the increase in traffic.