Great news: Global IPv6 usage rate hits a new high, and my country's IPv6 will be fully popularized

According to Google user statistics, as of June this year, the global IPv6 usage rate has reached a record high of nearly 24%. The data report released by CERNET shows that among the top ten countries with the largest number of newly added IPv6 addresses, China has ranked first and second for two consecutive years, with a significant growth rate.

With the support and guidance of policies and the boost of huge market demand, the deployment of IPv6 by Chinese telecom operators and Internet companies has been significantly accelerated. In this technological competition that concerns national network security and the competition for IP resources, China is moving into the fast lane with all its might.

IPv4 reveals bottleneck, global battle for IP resources begins

IPv6 is the abbreviation of "Internet Protocol Version 6", which means the sixth generation of Internet protocol. With the rapid development of the Internet, the number of terminals connected to the network continues to surge, and the IP addresses of the previous generation of Internet protocol IPv4 have been exhausted, becoming a bottleneck for the development of the Internet.

In comparison, IPv6 not only has sufficient addresses, but is also easier to manage. It is not easily intercepted or tampered with, is more secure, and can adapt to the network needs of the Internet of Everything era. Therefore, upgrading to IPv6 is imperative.

However, domain names and IP, the underlying technology of the Internet, have almost always been controlled by the United States. According to relevant data, in the IPv4 system, there are 13 root servers in the world, 10 of which, including the only main root server, are in the United States. The root server is also known as the "central nervous system" of the Internet, responsible for the resolution of top-level domain names on the Internet, and plays an important role in network resource allocation and network security maintenance.

Some experts said that the existing IPv4 system has caused an imbalance in the management and allocation of key Internet resources around the world. On the other hand, the lack of root servers has made countries unable to resist large-scale "distributed denial of service" attacks, posing a hidden danger to the Internet security of all countries. Therefore, countries around the world are upgrading and deploying IPv6, which is actually a battle for the right to speak on the allocation of network resources.

The monitoring data released by Akamai, the world's leading CDN company, shows that the IPv6 deployment rates in Belgium and the United States have both reached over 40%. In addition, the IPv6 deployment rates in India, Greece, Germany, Luxembourg, Sweden and Finland are also rising rapidly, all exceeding 20%. A year ago, among the top ten countries in the world with the highest IPv6 deployment rates, only four had a rate of over 20%.

This growth trend is more evident from the perspective of operators. Comcast and AT&T, both US operators, increased their IPv6 deployment rate from around 35% in 2015 to 43% in 2017, an increase of 8%. European operator DT Deutsche Telekom also achieved significant growth, with its IPv6 deployment rate increasing from 22.3% to 31.1%. However, the operator with the biggest change was T-Mobile, which increased from 43.7% to 81.5%, almost doubling.

The wave of IPv6 is sweeping the world. As a country that entered the IPv6 field earlier, China's total IPv6 address allocation has reached 23,430 blocks (/32) by December 31, 2017, ranking second in the world . However, due to the huge number of Internet users in China, the proportion of IPv6 users is still very small, and the actual application level is still at a relatively low level.

China's IPv6 deployment speeds up significantly, and the countdown to full coverage may begin

In April 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice on the "Action Plan for Promoting Large-Scale Deployment of Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)", demonstrating the country's determination to overtake others in the new round of technological competition.

Wen Ku, director of the Information and Communications Development Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, introduced that the domestic large-scale deployment of IPv6 has clearly planned three major stages: first, by 2018, a market-driven healthy development environment will be basically formed, and the number of active IPv6 users will reach 200 million; second, by 2020, a market-driven healthy development environment will be perfected, the number of active IPv6 users will exceed 500 million, and new network addresses will no longer use private IPv4 addresses; third, by 2025, my country's IPv6 network scale, user scale, and traffic scale will rank first in the world, and networks, applications, and terminals will fully support IPv6, completing the smooth evolution and upgrade to the next generation of the Internet.

However, the comprehensive upgrade of IPv6 poses considerable challenges to the technology. According to reports, the biggest challenge facing IPv6 deployment is not only the numerous links involved, but also the problem of "networks waiting for applications, applications waiting for networks" in actual operations. The current transformation idea is to take the LTE network, which is easy to transform and has obvious effects, as a breakthrough point, and to drive the increase of IPv6 users through the transformation of the self-operated business systems of basic telecommunications companies, and ultimately achieve a "traffic breakthrough".

At present, the three major telecom operators, various government websites across the country, state-owned enterprises, traditional media, top 50 commercial websites and applications, as well as cloud and CDN service providers have all responded actively.

As of the end of July, the three major domestic operators have completed the IPv6 transformation of five Internet backbone direct connection points in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Zhengzhou and Chengdu, and are accelerating the promotion of IPv6 . Since the beginning of this year, the proportion of domestic IPv6 users has increased from 0.3% to 5%.

Cloud vendors are also making progress in an orderly manner. In June, Alibaba Cloud announced that it would join forces with the three major operators to provide comprehensive IPv6 services to the outside world. Subsequently, Tencent Cloud, Kingsoft Cloud and others also launched IPv6 deployment plans.

As an important part of the large-scale deployment of IPv6, the IPv6 transformation of application infrastructure is also a top priority. In terms of IPv6 transformation of content distribution networks, China's leading CDN company Wangsu Technology has also made great progress.

Wangsu Technology revealed that its entire CDN product line currently supports IPv6, and it also exclusively provides a one-stop solution for full-link IPv6, which can help customers quickly cover IPv6 users and achieve a smooth transition of applications, services and data between IPv4 and IPv6 environments. This solution can cover all IPv6 demand scenarios and can achieve flexible resource expansion. In addition, Wangsu can ensure the best quality of IPv6 full-link access by performing dual-stack transformation on all internal platform devices.

However, promoting the large-scale deployment of IPv6 is a huge and arduous systematic project. Enterprises in all links of the industrial chain must not only perform their respective duties and responsibilities, but also strengthen cooperation and coordination to form a working synergy. As the main force, the layout of the three major operators and Internet companies has become a key link in promoting the large-scale deployment of IPv6 in my country.

From another perspective, the full deployment of IPv6 has also brought huge market space to the industry. With the full support of policies and the gradual launch of upgrades and renovations, hardware equipment manufacturers, cloud and CDN service providers, and network security service providers in the data communication field will all benefit.

Li Dong, vice president of Wangsu Technology, said that IPv6 is becoming the core protocol of the new generation of Internet and is currently entering a stage of accelerated popularization. This will effectively stimulate demand in all links of the industrial chain and will also bring a broader market space for the CDN industry.

It is reported that relevant domestic scientific research institutions, universities and enterprises are actively participating in IPv6 technology research and international standard formulation; mainstream products of network equipment manufacturers already support IPv6 protocol and have international competitiveness, and a market-driven healthy development environment has basically been formed.

As the IPv6 deployment process accelerates, China may be entering a countdown to the full arrival of IPv6.

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