Toward Quantum-Safe 6G: Experimental Evaluation of Post-Quantum Cryptography Techniques
For 6G network designers, this work identifies critical deployment trade-offs of PQC in resource-constrained wireless environments, but the findings are incremental as they confirm known bandwidth issues without proposing new solutions.
This paper evaluates NIST-standardized post-quantum cryptographic schemes (ML-KEM, ML-DSA, Falcon) for 6G networks, finding that while computational performance is acceptable, ciphertext and signature size expansion significantly degrades handshake reliability and bandwidth efficiency, especially at the network edge.
6G networks will require quantum-secure cryptography deployed across core infrastructure, edge nodes, resource-constrained IoT devices. Although post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) algorithms have been standardized by NIST, their practical deployability in bandwidth and latency limited wireless systems remains unclear. This paper presents a practical evaluation of NIST selected PQC schemes, including ML-KEM (Kyber), ML-DSA (Dilithium), and Falcon. Benchmarks conducted with OpenSSL and the OQS provider on heterogeneous platforms show that while computational performance is acceptable, ciphertext and signature size expansion significantly impact handshake reliability and bandwidth efficiency, particularly at the network edge. The results highlight key system-level trade-offs and motivate the need for PQC optimization and deployment-aware design for future quantum-secure 6G networks.