# 6G to Take the Digital Divide by Storm: Key Technologies and Trends to Bridge the Gap
## 7 Discussion and Conclusions  
The 6G is foreseen to support ground-breaking requirements. Top-notch technologies will have to be exploited by the future generation networks to foster high-performance  
Figure 4: Relevance of the 6G technologies on the two use cases. management of the new expected use cases, including those that arose during the health emergency caused by COVID-19. Due to the lockdowns imposed by the pandemic, work organization, education, and other daily-life habits have been _contaminated_ by technology in ways that cannot be defined as temporary. We could state that the acceleration experienced by the digitization process, in the last year, represents the silver lining of COVID-19. Indeed, the pandemic has shifted the attention of worldwide researchers and government institutions to the importance of technological progress and, consequently, even to the problem of the digital divide, which affects people who have been excluded from the progress achieved thanks to the stimulus for improvement favored by the health emergency and investments in the ICT sector. At the same time, although digital transformation may represent a lifeline in many cases, opinions exist for which it could represent an additional cause of exclusion for the so-called _have-nots_. Considering the evolution of wireless mobile networks, 6G could exacerbate the digital divide, given that already the 5G standard has been unevenly distributed in different countries of the world in the first phase of release, thus leading to the creation of a further gap between the areas that receive state-of-the-art network coverage and those that do not. As we also stated in Section 2, there are contradictory opinions according to which technological evolution could solve or, on the contrary, aggravate the phenomenon of the digital divide; however, COVID-19 has put the spotlight on the problems relating to the profound inequalities in access to information and communication technologies, thus triggering various world institutions to conduct studies on the impact of the pandemic also on the economic field. For example, the report released by United Nations University (UNU) and United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) highlights the exacerbation of the digital divide caused by COVID-19, reporting a 30% fall in sales of electronic and electrical equipment in the low- and middle-income countries, and only 5% in high-income countries [46]. This argues that the pandemic has hurt the worldwide economy but the poorest countries harder, testifying to the fact that at the root of the problem of the digital divide there are also significant economic disparities, the solution of which is outside the scope of this paper. In fact, this work aims to illustrate the evolution of the digital divide phenomenon and place it in the context of the future 6G, providing an overview of technologies and applications that telecommunications companies could exploit to help in bridging this gap, which has existed since technology began to spread among the people. In the vein of the decentralization trend described in Section 3, also 6G business models are expected to be decentralized to support the new use cases. The birth of the telecom virtual operators (MVNO) or the network sharing business model are concrete examples of how business dynamics are increasingly moving away from the classic model of centralization of resources at the mobile network operator (MNO) [47]. This can bring benefits in terms of extension of network coverage and enhancement of the provided services. For example, the newly-introduced micro operators can manage the requests of specific target users by offering higher-quality localized connectivity customized to the consumer's needs. Conceptualization, C.S. and S.P. ; writing--original draft preparation, C.S., S.P., F.M. and M.D.F. ; writing--review and editing, C.S., S.P., F.M., M.D.F. and G.A. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. This research received no external funding. Not applicable.