Sophia Antipolis, France, 28 January 2026
Multiple Access Techniques (MAT) are expected to play a central role in achieving the spectrum efficiency targets of IMT‑2030, essential to support the massive growth in connected devices, new XR applications, and increasingly dense urban deployments.
The report analyses three promising candidate techniques, i.e., power‑domain NOMA, Rate‑Splitting Multiple Access (RSMA) and Cache‑Aided MU‑MIMO and compares them to established 3GPP methods such as Orthogonal Multiple Access (OMA), Multi‑User MIMO (MU‑MIMO) and Multi‑User Superposition Transmission (MUST). It evaluates their performance under various channel conditions and identifies the additional processing, assistance information from the network and reference signals required for each scheme.
Key findings include:
- RSMA shows strong performance gains in scenarios with highly correlated user channels or power imbalance, improving both total throughput and fairness.
- Power‑domain NOMA offers advantages for users with significantly different channel strengths, particularly for enhancing the weaker UE’s bitrate.
- Cache‑Aided MU‑MIMO introduces a novel approach where receivers use cached data to cancel interference, enabling efficient multiplexing for cacheable content such as video‑on‑demand.
- The study highlights limitations of existing evaluation methods and identifies areas for further investigation, including link‑level simulations with standardised modulations and coding.
This Group Report represents an important contribution to the early technical discussions around 6G radio interface design, particularly as 3GPP begins work on Release 20 studies for the next generation of mobile communication systems.
