Application of IPv6 in 3G networks

3G technology is a complex system engineering, which requires some advanced technologies to ensure the implementation of this system engineering. In terms of 3G data service implementation, the IPv6 technology will be applied to the 3G network, specifically to the user's addressing, addressing and routing technology. IPv6 is the addressing, addressing, and routing technology for next-generation Internet connections. It is based on IPv4 and overcomes some key defects of IPv4 technology. It is especially suitable for wireless data business environments.

The development of 3G services, especially data services, requires the network to provide a large number of IP addresses as a technical guarantee. However, the current IPv4 technology is very difficult to meet the address requirements of 3G networks. It is mainly because IPv4 technology is facing the dilemma of address depletion. Although IPv4 has 32-bit address space and can accommodate 4,294,967,296 addresses, the IP address allocation principle results in a large waste of IP addresses. In fact, we only share millions of IP addresses. This far cannot meet the address needs of mobile and fixed users in the future. For situations where the IP addresses that can be allocated are close to depletion, some structures have to adopt private IP addresses, when the networks of these organizations and other organizations are connected through the public IP network, the private IP address must be converted to a public IP address through the network address translation device (NAT) to achieve interconnection. NAT address translation not only causes network performance bottlenecks, but also prevents some applications from penetrating NAT, such as encrypted data packets and some data packets that do not use the UDP or TCP header. It can be seen that IPv4 address restrictions affect the development of the network and the implementation of applications, especially in the third-generation mobile communication networks that require a large number of IP addresses.

The IPv6 protocol greatly extends the IP address range. This new technology uses 128-bit address space and has 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addresses, 296 times the number of IPv4 addresses. Such a huge address space can meet the current and future address allocation needs. Such an address space means that the Earth can have 665,570,793,348,866,943,898,599 addresses per square meter, mobile phones, automobiles, instruments, and electrical devices on the earth, and even each grain of sand can have multiple IP addresses. IP addresses on the earth can be said to be inexhaustible. After adopting IPv6 technology, we do not need to use the current method of saving IP addresses, such as NAT technology, which brings great benefits to our network design and application implementation. The biggest advantage of IPv6 is address depletion.

IPv6 not only addresses, but also has the following benefits compared with IPv4:

1. IPv6 adopts hierarchical structure design. the hierarchical structure of IP addresses can express the global network structure and routing structure. This Hierarchical IP address design greatly reduces the route table of the backbone router device.

2. IPv6 provides more effective automatic Address Allocation capabilities. Compared with IPv4, IPv6 devices can automatically configure their own IP addresses even if there is no DHCP server, and can be configured in a very short time.

3. IPv6 can better implement IPQoS,

The Flow Label field in the IPv6 Header can classify IP streams so that IPv6 devices can process different streams.

With its huge technical advantages, IPv6 will play an important role in future IP networks, especially in the third-generation mobile communication networks. The core network (PS domain) of a 3G network is actually an IP access network, through which mobile users can access the Internet to enjoy the mobile surfing service. An IP address is required before a mobile user can access the mobile network and enjoy information services. A mobile user can obtain an IPv4 or IPv6 address, however, IPv6 technology can avoid address restrictions when users enjoy mobile data services.

Although IPv6 technology has great advantages, its implementation is not achieved overnight. At present, a large number of network devices and applications are designed based on IPv4 and do not support IPv6, to achieve IPv6, we need to make a step-by-step transition and cannot rush for success. We can upgrade some network nodes to nodes supported by both the IPv6 and IPv4 addressing modes, and then upgrade them to IPv6 nodes. Tunnel, address translation, dual-protocol stack, and other transition schemes must be considered before all nodes across the network are upgraded to IPv6 nodes.

This is also true for our 3G networks. IPv6 for 3G networks is the first possible implementation on mobile terminals, which is also the result of the business-first approach. If 3G terminal Shuai uses IPv6 technology first, but the existing Internet does not use IPv6 technology, it requires a transitional method. The commonly used transitional method uses the IPv4 Tunnel Technology to carry IPv6 packets, there are also IPv6 address and IPv4 conversion technologies, as well as dual-protocol stack and other technologies. For example, if a 3G terminal uses IPv6 addressing and the internet server is an IPv4 server, you can use the IPv4 Tunnel Technology from the host to the router to carry the IPv6 packet. The IPv6 package is encapsulated in the IPv4 Tunnel on the 3G terminal, and then transmitted to the target host through the IPv4 network or the GGSN encapsulation.

It can be seen that there is still a long way to go before IPv6 can be implemented. Before IPv6 can be implemented, all the advantages of IPv6. This is also true for 3G networks. If IPv6 is only implemented in the group domain of 3G networks, the existing IPv4 network problems cannot be solved. We are moving towards IPv6

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