The project's main objective is to achieve a network reliability of 99.999%, meaning at most five minutes without a connection per year for the radio access network. Furthermore, for crisis situations, the goal is to keep 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," states Marco Gramaglia, PROSPERO coordinator and professor at UC3M.
Another goal of PROSPERO is to shift the industry paradigm where each company develops and deploys its own network. "We aim for a single network and a single shared computing capacity to move toward a single telecommunications market in Europe," points out Gramaglia. This architecture will allow operators, cloud providers, and enterprises to collaborate across boundaries and manage network and computing as a single logical resource, which can be pooled in emergency situations.
Currently, mobile networks are critical infrastructure but are increasingly costly to deploy, complex to manage, and have a growing energy footprint. PROSPERO investigates transforming network architecture in the transition from 5G to 6G, replacing monolithic systems with an open, flexible, and intelligent platform. This platform will run on shared hardware, natively integrate artificial intelligence (AI), and enable secure resource sharing.
The project stems from the diagnosis that the 5G rollout has not delivered expected returns for European operators. To mitigate economic risks, reduce total operational costs, and enable new business models, PROSPERO is structured around three pillars: a uniform, integrated, and simplified architecture; tailored and efficient artificial intelligence; and secure inter-operator collaboration for resource sharing and enhanced resilience.
In this context, IMDEA Networks will specifically work on reducing operational expenditure (OPEX) in 6G systems, focusing on the energy costs of Radio Access Networks (RAN), which account for over 70% of the total power consumption of a mobile communication infrastructure. Dr. Marco Fiore, Principal Investigator for PROSPERO at IMDEA Networks, states that current energy-saving policies are insufficient and that PROSPERO will develop AI-driven solutions potentially saving an additional 20-30% of RAN energy costs while preserving quality of service.
The project features prominent Spanish representation, led by UC3M as the coordinating institution, alongside Telefónica Innovación Digital and IMDEA Networks. The European alliance includes NEC Laboratories Europe and Nokia (Germany), FiberCop (Italy), Canary Bit (Sweden), and Real Wireless (UK), with the Universidade de Campinas (Brazil) as an Associated Partner. "Our goal is that when 6G technology is operational around 2030, networks will be more environmentally sustainable and more reliable," the researchers conclude.
