  High altitude platform station (HAPS) systems have recently attracted renewed
attention. While terrestrial and satellite technologies are well-established
for providing connectivity services, they face certain shortcomings and
challenges, which could be addressed by complementing them with HAPS systems.
In this paper, we envision a HAPS as a super macro base station, which we refer
to as HAPS-SMBS, to provide connectivity in a plethora of applications. Unlike
a conventional HAPS, which targets broad coverage for remote areas or disaster
recovery, we envision next-generation HAPS-SMBS to have the necessary
capabilities to address the high capacity, low latency, and computing
requirements especially for highly populated metropolitan areas. This article
focuses mainly on the potential opportunities, target use cases, and challenges
that we expect to be associated with the design and implementation of the
HAPS-SMBS based future wireless access architecture.
