China Telecom is working hard to complete the IPv6 network transformation by the end of the year

At the 2018 Global Network Technology Conference, Xie Chongfeng, director of the Beijing Key Laboratory of IPv6-based Telecom Network Technology and subject expert of China Telecom Beijing Research Institute, delivered a speech entitled "New Development and Technical Challenges of the Next Generation Internet". Xie Chongfeng said that at this stage, the number of China Telecom's IPv6 users has increased significantly, and the comprehensive IPv6 bearer and service capabilities of "cloud, pipe and terminal" have been initially established.

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In accordance with national requirements, China Telecom will continue to promote large-scale deployment of IPv6 without leaving any blind spots. He called for close cooperation among all sectors of the industry to build a high-quality next-generation Internet. China Telecom will actively explore and practice cloud-network integration, pure IPv6 networking, and intelligence.

IPv6 is a globally recognized next-generation Internet commercial application solution. So far, the global IPv6 industry chain is basically mature, and the conditions for the new wave of IPv6 deployment have been greatly improved compared with the past. Operators' home gateways have good support, and mainstream manufacturers' equipment also fully supports it.

China Telecom has carried out large-scale deployment of IPv6 very early. According to Xie Chongfeng, in December 2017, according to the "Action Plan" of the two offices, China Telecom sorted out the IPv6 support situation. In March 2018, China Telecom formulated measures and plans to promote large-scale deployment of IPv6. In May 2018, with the help of 517 Telecom Day, China Telecom released its IPv6 deployment arrangements. In July 2018, China Telecom released its phased results of IPv6 promotion at the 712 IPv6 Forum. In August 2018, China Telecom's 4GLTE fully opened IPv6 to provide services for mobile users. In September 2018, China Telecom's portal network and the top ten self-operated apps fully supported IPv6 services.

"In December 2018, China Telecom's network infrastructure, mobile infrastructure, etc. will be completely transformed," Xie Chongfeng revealed.

At present, China Telecom's IPv6 transformation is progressing well. The backbone network fully supports and enables IPv6, opens international export 20G, and traffic grows rapidly. In terms of IPv6 interconnection, it has completed interconnection with China Unicom and China Mobile in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Zhengzhou and Rongcheng, with a bandwidth of 3.14T; at the same time, it has completed interconnection with the education network in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, with a bandwidth of 36.31G. In terms of mobile networks, China Telecom's LTE is fully enabled, with more than 100 million active users. In terms of metropolitan area networks, 29 provinces across the country provide fixed-line IPv6 services, with more than 30 million users. In terms of self-operated businesses, ten self-operated apps such as 189 Mailbox, Aiyouxi, and Tianyi Video have completed transformation. In addition, more than 400 IDCs have completed transformation, and all super-large and large IDCs support IPv6. Nine products in 35 cloud resource pools support IPv6.

At present, China Telecom's 4G has fully opened IPv6, and the active user index has increased dramatically. At the terminal level, more than 90% of China Telecom's mobile phone models support dual stacks; iPhone has supported IPv6 at the end of October. Core network: PGW configures IPv6 address pool; SGW issues IPv6 addresses and DNS addresses to users. The IT system also performs corresponding service activation and billing. The route of the user's IPv6 address is released on the bearer network to forward traffic. Xie Chongfeng said that in October 2018, the number of active users of China Telecom's mobile Internet exceeded 100 million.

At the same time, China Telecom has also transformed its fixed network end-to-end to provide IPv6 access services. All metropolitan area network equipment has enabled IPv6 functions. All AAAs have completed IPv6 transformation. All DNSs support AAAA resolution and IPv6 bearer. 29 provinces' home gateways have enabled IPv6; the number of users who have activated it exceeds 30 million, accounting for 27% of all gateways that support IPv6.

China Telecom's IDC transformation is progressing rapidly, and it is responding to the IPv6 transformation of Internet companies. All internal communication devices such as switches, firewalls and load balancers have enabled IPv6. The egress router publishes the internal IPv6 routes of the cloud resource pool. China Telecom has completed the transformation of more than 400 IDCs across the network, accounting for 93%, which has met the opening needs of Internet companies in a timely manner, and plans to enable all IDCs to support IPv6 in the near future.

Currently, there are 9 cloud products that support IPv6, including cloud hosts, cloud storage, and load balancing. Each product is distributed in a cloud resource pool in different regions, and each pool is transformed, and the products carried are also upgraded accordingly. At present, China Telecom has completed the transformation of 35 resource pools in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Changsha, Zhengzhou, etc. It is planned to complete the transformation of all resource pools in the near future.

At the same time, China Telecom's self-operated business has been fully upgraded. The transformation of the self-owned content of the Android version of China Telecom's top 10 APPs and the transformation of the IOS version have also been basically completed. The number of active users of the mobile business hall alone has reached 23 million. The next step is to promote the transformation of third-party links. Among them, the telecom free content and transformation of the portal website of the group portal network and provincial (professional) branches have been completed.

Xie Chongfeng pointed out that while deploying IPv6, China Telecom also focused on network performance and user experience.

At the beginning of his speech, Xie Chongfeng also introduced two other next-generation Internet technologies. One is pure IPv6, which aims to reduce the construction and maintenance costs of the network and is an inevitable development trend after the dual stack. Pure IPv6 has been verified in existing networks abroad, and some operators have begun large-scale deployment. However, because the industry's understanding of pure IPv6 is still inconsistent, China needs to formulate the scenarios, overall architecture, and key technical standards of pure IPv6 networks. Pure IPv6 networking exploration and technological innovation can be carried out in some new fields, such as the Internet of Things and IDC.

The other is SRv6. SR technology is designed based on the concept of source routing. The forwarding path of data packets in the network can be controlled through the source node. The intermediate nodes do not need to have path information, and the path and adjustment can be flexibly and easily implemented. A simpler control plane is simplified, and protocols such as LDP or RSVP-TE are no longer required. A distributed control plane or a centralized control plane can be used. The expanded data plane directly reuses the existing data plane, MPLS or IPv6. SRv6 is conducive to making the network simple, flexible, and programmable.