"We aim for a network reliability of 99.999%. That means you would be without a connection for, at most, five minutes during an entire year," states PROSPERO coordinator, Marco Gramaglia, professor in the Department of Telematic Engineering at UC3M. This objective, known in the industry as "five nines," applies to the radio access network. For crisis situations, the project also targets keeping critical services available 99.9% of the time, even during large-scale outages. "The impact will be felt especially when events like blackouts, natural disasters, or large-scale cyberattacks occur. Since operators will share resources among themselves, the effect of these incidents will be much smaller and more localized," he explains.
Another goal of PROSPERO is to shift an industry paradigm in which each company develops and deploys its own network. "We will try to have a single network and a single shared computing capacity to move toward a single telecommunications market in Europe," points out Marco Gramaglia. In this way, each operator will maintain control over its own infrastructure, but PROSPERO's architecture will allow operators, cloud providers, and enterprises to collaborate across these boundaries and manage network and computing as a single logical resource. In emergency situations, this resource can be pooled.
Currently, mobile networks constitute critical infrastructure, but they represent a system that is increasingly costly to deploy, complex to manage, and carries a growing energy footprint. To address this issue, PROSPERO is investigating how to transform network architecture in the transition from 5G to 6G by replacing monolithic, expensive, and slow-evolving systems (especially in the access network) with an open, flexible, and intelligent platform. This new platform will run on shared hardware for multiple functions beyond connectivity, featuring native artificial intelligence (AI) integrated by design and mechanisms for operators, cloud providers, and enterprises to share resources securely.
The project stems from a clear industry diagnosis: the deployment of 5G has not delivered the expected returns for European operators, and without a change in approach, the transition to 6G risks slowing down due to financial constraints. "PROSPERO's starting point is a very concrete problem: 5G rollout was extremely costly, and operators have not yet recovered that investment. Therefore, in this project, we will work on the network architecture to make it cheaper on the one hand and enable new monetizable services on the other," explains Marco Gramaglia.
Three pillars to reduce costs and boost new business models
To mitigate the economic risks of 6G, lower the total cost of operation, and enable new business models that incentivize efficient investment in cutting-edge technology, PROSPERO structures its work around three fundamental pillars:
Experimental validation and resilience during large-scale emergencies
PROSPERO’s methodology targets three real-world business cases for the telecommunications sector: cost savings, revenue generation, and resilience. These tracks will translate into concrete solutions designed, implemented, and validated through a series of proof-of-concept tests and experimental evaluations. The goal is to obtain measurable evidence of their performance under real conditions before taking them to international standardisation bodies.
By combining connectivity, intelligence, and efficient resource utilization within a unified framework, PROSPERO seeks to overcome current telecommunications fragmentation, reduce reliance on proprietary technologies, and bolster European technological sovereignty.
Spain features prominent representation in this international scientific project, led by UC3M as the coordinating institution, alongside Telefónica Innovación Digital and IMDEA Networks. The European alliance is completed by NEC Laboratories Europe and Nokia (Germany), FiberCop (Italy), Canary Bit (Sweden), and Real Wireless (UK), with Universidade de Campinas (Brazil) participating as an Associated Partner. "Through all this work, our goal is that when 6G technology is operational around 2030, networks will be environmentally more sustainable and more reliable," the researchers conclude.
PROSPERO (Programmable and Scalable Operations for Efficient Resource-Aware Architecture in 6G Networks) has received funding from the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101293102. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the SNS JU. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
More information: https://sns-prospero.eu/