Why do people take the secondary roads instead of the highways? There are reasons why IPv6 is difficult to popularize

Why take the IPv4 side road when there is the IPv6 highway? There are indeed reasons why IPv6 is difficult to popularize.

According to the global IPv6 statistics released by Google, as of the end of November 2018, the global IPv6 penetration rate has exceeded 25.04%, while China's IPv6 penetration rate is only 2.93%.

Why is IPv6 still so bleak after its rapid development? Because the road has not been fully paved, but the IPv6 network transformation of the three major operators will be fully completed by the end of 2018. What remains is to guide the terminals and network applications in the hands of users to support IPv6.

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IPv6 is not compatible with IPv4

Why is it so difficult to switch from IPv4 to IPv6? One of the main reasons is that IPv6 was not designed to be compatible with IPv4, which makes it difficult for IPv4 and IPv6 to communicate with each other.

IPv6 and IPv6 are like two languages, but the grammar, tense and other structures of these two languages ​​are different, and they need to be translated to make them interoperable. As a result, the original version needs to develop a new version of IPv6, which increases the cost and makes many companies reluctant to do so.

The three major operators are stepping up efforts to pave the way

At the symposium held by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on November 30, the issue of accelerating the large-scale deployment of IPv6 was emphasized again. After nearly a year of construction, the three major operators will complete the IPv6 transformation task by the end of the year.

China Mobile's IPv6 network currently covers 670 million users, of which 350 million are mobile terminal users and 136 million are fixed-line users.

China Telecom will complete the IPv6 network transformation of its network infrastructure and mobile infrastructure in December. The main focus of China Telecom is on the transformation of IDC data centers, which has been completed by 93%.

China Unicom's LTE network already supports IPv6 100%, the backbone network 100%, the metropolitan area network 97% (100% support will be achieved by the end of this year), and the access network is 99%.

Low cost to get on the road

According to the latest data released by China Internet Information Center, there are only 338 million IPv4 addresses for 751 million Internet users in my country, which obviously cannot meet the needs of my country's Internet development. However, IPv6 has designed 2 to the 128th power of addresses, which means that every grain of sand on the earth can be assigned an IPv6 address, solving the problem of address scarcity.

Since there are so many IPv6 addresses, the cost of IP addresses will definitely be reduced. Especially now that the conversion technology between IPv6 and IPv4 addresses has emerged, it can allow businesses to switch to IPv6 networks at a lower cost.

From a business perspective, in addition to directly choosing IPv6 services, some cloud service providers also provide IPv6 and IPv4 interoperability services. New services are directly connected to IPv6, and existing services are interconnected through optional services, further reducing the cost of lane switching.

Switching to IPv6 requires costs

Currently, the weak links in IPv6 promotion are applications and terminals. Currently, the backbone networks and mobile networks of operators have enabled IPv6 bearer functions. However, the routers or mobile phones in many users' homes do not support IPv6 functions. In addition, most applications still use IPv4 traffic when communicating on the network.

The road has been paved, and it depends on how the end-to-end communication works. The routers or mobile phones in the hands of users can be upgraded to support it, or completed through software upgrades. For example, Apple has learned that iOS12.1 supports IPv6 dual-stack networks after the upgrade.

In terms of applications, VoLTE's end-to-end IPv6 single stack has no technical problems. The network and DNS also support IPv6, which can fully support pure IPv6 applications. In addition, popular apps are encouraged to migrate to IPv6, especially the operators' own apps should be the first to be transformed. New services and new applications are also a good opportunity to directly apply IPv6 and get on the fast track.

Conclusion

The network upgrade and evolution to IPv6 is inevitable. Currently, the number of IPv6 users in India and the United States has exceeded 100 million, leading the world. After the transformation is completed at the end of 2018, China will become the third country in the world with more than 100 million IPv6 users.

With the advent of the 5G era, faster Internet speeds combined with more IP addresses, 5G+IPv6+Internet of Things will build a world where everything is connected in the future.