POST-QUANTUM CRYPTOGRAPHY FOR NEXT-GEN TELECOM INFRASTRUCTURE

The arrival of practical quantum computing poses a critical threat to classical cryptographic algorithms widely used in telecom infrastructure. RSA, ECC, and Diffie–Hellman—all fundamental to authentication, key exchange, and encryption—can be broken by Shor’s algorithm running on a large-scale quantum computer. This paper explores the integration of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) into next-generation telecom systems (5G, 6G, and beyond). We analyze the computational performance, key sizes, and latency trade-offs of various NIST-standardized PQC algorithms (e.g., Kyber, Dilithium, BIKE), and evaluate their suitability for different layers of telecom architecture including RAN, core, and edge networks. Our findings reveal that PQC can be integrated with manageable overheads, but raises new challenges in key management, backward compatibility, and standardization.