New opportunities for the development of the Internet

As a sophomore graduate at Tsinghua University, Xiao Li returned to the dormitory after usual. After turning on the computer and clicking on the "six-dimensional space," he searched for the most up-to-date documentary in China. A 2G-sized HD documentary only took three minutes to download. "The maximum speed here can rush to 11 MB / s," said Li excitedly.

Forums like "Six-Dimensional Space" are pre-experimental sites that are commonplace in colleges and universities and all have in common the building of a new type of network protocol called IPv6. IPv6 is the abbreviation of "Internet Protocol Version 6". It is a next-generation IP protocol used to replace the current version of "IPv4". The current IPv4 address is a 32-bit code and the IPv6 address is a 128-bit code, 128 times IP address, its resources are almost endless.

New opportunities for the development of the Internet

"The second generation of Internet IPv4 technology we use, the core technology in the United States, has its biggest problem with limited network address resources, and the current IP address has been assigned by February 3, 2011. North America accounts for three-quarters of this, about 30 Hundreds of millions of people in Asia, with a population of less than 400 million, and China's IPv4 addresses reaching 250 million, lag far behind the needs of 420 million Internet users. This has severely restricted the use and development of the Internet in China and other countries. "Information on Tsinghua University Dr. Xiao Zhiqing told the author that IPv6 belongs to the network layer in the layering of network protocols. Compared with IPv4, IPv6 possesses more addresses and can well solve the problem of the current shortage of IPv4 addresses.

"One analogy is that a university in the United States allocates more IP addresses than a country's IP address. With IPv6, the world's only sand can have its own IP address." Say.

In addition to the large number of IP addresses that can be assigned, one of the most important applications of IPv6 is the Internet identity card under the network real-name system. One of the important reasons why IPv4-based networks are hard to realize network real-name system is that because IP resources are not shared enough, different people share one IP in different time periods. IP and Internet users can not achieve one-to-one correspondence. In addition, IPv6-based IoT applications cover a wide range of areas such as smart agriculture, smart environment protection, intelligent building and intelligent transportation, providing "ubiquitous connectivity and online services" including online monitoring, location tracking and alarm linkage , Command and dispatch, remote maintenance and other services.

At present, many countries in the world are investing more to promote the further maturity and popularization of IPv6 technology. China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) released "2014 China Internet Development Report" shows that developed countries have the largest number of IPv6 addresses, currently has the largest number of IPv6 addresses in Germany. As of the end of 2013, China had 16,670 IPv6 address segments, an increase of 14.4% over 2012. China's major network operators already have large IPv6 addresses, and the total number of IPv6 addresses has ranked second in the world.

It will take time to popularize IPv6

Despite all the benefits, IPv6 is still underutilized around the world. Currently in Europe and the United States and other developed countries, the application of IPv4 is still the mainstream. In China, the use of IPv6 is limited to the education network of universities and research institutes. It is mainly used for scientific research and teaching activities and has not yet reached the market stage. According to IANA figures, IPv6 now has a global penetration of only 3.5%, compared with only 0.92% in China and is expected to rise to around 10% in five years.

Xiaozhi Qing believes that the reasons for this phenomenon there are two main reasons: First, the current application of IPv6 less support IPv6 network protocol equipment is not enough; Second, the current IPv4 and IPv6 interoperability in the technology there are still some difficulties, IPv4-based Web sites are hard to access using IPv6 network protocols, and most of the world's Web sites today are still based on IPv4.

"For historical reasons, many foreign IT equipment manufacturers still only produce equipment with IPv4 protocol so far.Many people in our country use computers, many of the devices we have deployed, and only IPv4, which is IPv6 The popularity has caused great difficulties. "Xiao Zhiqing said.

"WINDOWS XP system, for example, XP system default is not installed to identify IPv6 features, to use IPv6 in the XP system, you must first install the pre-existing features in the XP system." Xiao Zhiqing told the author, XP system in China Of the stock is particularly large, the average Internet users will not specifically to install IPv6 services, so there is no way to play IPv6 functionality.

Due to the vast majority of websites and network applications are based on the IPv4 protocol to build, therefore, the full replacement of IPv6 with IPv6 can be imagined the difficulty. Developed Unicom IPv4 and IPv6 technology has become the key to the popularity of IPv6.

"IPv4 and IPv6 are two mutually incompatible protocols. The two are not interoperable in nature. At present, some conversion technologies, such as the IVI protocol and the DIVI protocol proposed by Tsinghua University, have been extended to some international standardization organizations and some Has become a draft, and has been adopted .IVI and DIVI IPV4 and IPV6 IPV6 these two protocols can be converted to each other, like a dictionary can translate English and Chinese each other the same translation. "Xiao Zhiqing said that this agreement was developed after A kind of software, usually installed on the router. With this agreement, network users on IPv6 will be able to access websites on IPv4 more smoothly.

In addition, the security of IPv6 has also been controversial. Wu Hequan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chairman of the Internet Society of China, pointed out that IPv6's vision is good, but there is a big problem with the security of the endpoint and the quality of the protocol. Some incidents have occurred in the use of IPv6 security incidents, such as smart grid, the Federal Aviation Administration next-generation ATC system. IPv6 facilities are not yet as mature as IPv4, and IPv6 offers some new security challenges when it comes to wireless communications using roaming PCs with connection sharing.

More needs to be done at the national level

As a major technology related to the national strategy for the development of the Internet in the future, the promotion of IPv6 requires not only the efforts of scientific research institutes but also the push of the state at the policy level.

"At the national strategic level, since many of the rules governing computer software are now developed by developed countries, both operating systems and routers are actually using the technology of developed countries. Once problems arise, at the national level, There will be losses, so the national level should assume more responsibility. "Xiaozhi Qing told the author, to further improve the penetration rate of IPv6, you can use some coercive measures or preferential tariffs and other means to encourage more users to install using IPv6 Service functions and equipment, but also can encourage content providers to provide more IPv6 resources.

In fact, the curtain on IPv6 as a strategy for the next generation of Internet development at the national level has already begun. Chen Jiachun, deputy director of the Department of Communications and Development of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said at the 2014 Global IPv6 Next Generation Internet Summit that MIIT will unite with relevant industry departments to continue the process of network and website reform and promote the construction of the next generation Internet model city. With the development of 4G LTE in China As an opportunity to open up the end of the network, the key link end to accelerate the commercialization of mobile Internet IPv6 process.

Zhao Huiling, chief engineer of China Telecom Cloud Computing Center and chief engineer of Beijing Research Institute, expects that there are many layers involved in the current network from IPv4 to IPv6, and there is a huge amount of network elements in all levels. It is estimated that the investment in upgrading and revamping the entire network will be at least 20 billion yuan.