IPv4 addresses are exhausted, but the utilization rate of IPv6 addresses in China is only 0.5%

"With the widespread and in-depth application of the global Internet, the crisis of IPv4 address depletion is no longer a joke of 'crying wolf'." On the 14th, Yan Baoping, chief engineer of the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in an interview with Science and Technology Daily that in the face of the shortage of IPv4 addresses, enabling IPv6 addresses and promoting the application of IPv6 networks has become an inevitable trend in the development of the Internet.

IP address is an important part of Internet protocol, which can identify any device connected to the Internet. IPv4 and IPv6 are two versions of IP protocol that have appeared successively. Compared with IPv4, IPv6 not only has a larger address space, but there was once a saying that under IPv6 protocol, every grain of sand on the earth will have its own IP address.

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"my country is one of the countries with the most IPv6 addresses, and its number ranks among the top in the world; however, the utilization rate of IPv6 addresses has fallen outside the top 50 in the world." Data shows that in 2016, the top three countries in terms of the number of IPv6 addresses were the United States, China and the United Kingdom, but the IPv6 utilization rates of the three countries were 32.9%, 0.5% and 25.5% respectively.

Yan Baoping explained that there are two reasons for this. First, my country's telecom operators have not carried out supporting deployment of IPv6 infrastructure, and the current basic telecom networks are all running in an IPv4 environment. Second, domestic websites basically do not support IPv6 access, and even if users want to use it, there is no application environment.

Based on this, Yan Baoping suggested that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission and other industry regulatory departments actively organize and coordinate the three major telecommunications network operators to carry out the construction and deployment of IPv6 networks, and promote websites to actively carry out application technology research and development and services that support IPv6.

"Only through the deployment and application of IPv6 can we lay a more solid foundation for the development of China's Internet of Things and Industrial Manufacturing 2025," said Yan Baoping.