What will be the future of the Internet after the heyday?

On April 19, it was reported that the current Internet has suffered from "atherosclerosis", and the network architecture has many fatal weaknesses. Over the years, it has formed a very complex, entangled and rigid network.

Our generation has experienced the heyday of the Internet, but at the same time, the global network is also entering a huge era of change. So what is the future network?

The network architecture under "atherosclerosis" needs to be changed

According to Wei Leping, executive deputy director of the Communications Technology Committee of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and director of the Technology Committee of China Telecom, the current network is facing four major problems in terms of architecture: first, the network is rigid. Once built, it cannot be moved. It takes at least half a year to a year to start all over again, which is not suitable for the development needs of the Internet era; second, the equipment is closed. Operators have always bought black boxes, which are dedicated equipment and expensive software. Basically, the equipment manufacturers are locked in. When the next step of capacity expansion is carried out, the equipment manufacturers may own it for five or ten years and cannot be moved; third, the business platform is a bunch of chimneys. There are too many chimneys in the operator's business platform, and the business cannot be integrated, making it very difficult to provide new business; fourth, the operation is complex. Planning, construction, operation and maintenance are all very complex, and the operation and maintenance costs are high.

Therefore, the network architecture must be re-examined, re-architected, re-designed and re-defined.

What is the future network after the heyday?

Our generation has experienced the heyday of the Internet, but at the same time, the global network is also entering a huge era of change. So what is the future network?

Wu Hequan, former vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, pointed out that 5G is not the future network, but it is related to the future network. "The coverage of the future network is not only wireless but also wired. The future network is expected to be larger and have a wider range of applications. 5G will be commercially available in 2020, and the future network may be later than this time."

Wei Leping believes that the soul of the future network is the transformation of network architecture.

Wei Leping said that the future network is not an academic definition, but can be divided into two dimensions: first, to meet the ever-changing information communication and entertainment consumption needs of the people in the future; second, to meet the ever-changing information communication and production needs of enterprises. "The network quality of the future network must be good enough; the response must be fast enough, reaching the minute level; the networking must be flexible and agile enough; the coverage must be wide enough, with ubiquitous connectivity, able to connect people and everything; and the cost-effectiveness must be good enough."

SDN and NFV are the "greatest common divisors" of future networks, and artificial intelligence has a lot to offer

The three major technical supports for network architecture reconstruction and innovation are SDN, NFV and cloudification. Among them, SDN and NFV are the "greatest common divisor" of future networks. The new architecture based on SDN/NFV is the main line of network reconstruction, especially the new architecture with network control and forwarding and dual decoupling of network element software and hardware as its basic features is a global and revolutionary architecture.

At the network level, SDN breaks the closed architecture of integrated control and forwarding, and realizes a new era of programmable network software. At the network element level, NFV breaks the closed network element architecture of integrated software and hardware, and realizes the virtualization of network resources. Cloud computing breaks the separation of network and IT resources, and builds a unified cloud virtual resource pool.

It is particularly important to point out that artificial intelligence based on big data will also become an important part of the network, and with the advancement of technology, artificial intelligence will be a place where it can be used in future networks.

Future network trials will cover 40 cities

Today, the world's mainstream operators have also announced their network reconstruction strategies, and China is also carrying out this process in a step-by-step and planned manner.

It is understood that future network tests will cover 40 cities and support 4,096 parallel experiments. They will be interconnected with existing IP networks, be able to efficiently carry existing Internet services, support the national development strategy of Internet +, and meet the needs of the country's 13th and 14th Five-Year Plans for next-generation networks, cyberspace security, integrated space-ground networks, artificial intelligence and other major projects. It will play a huge supporting role in comprehensively improving my country's network innovation capabilities, enhancing the core competitiveness of the network industry, building an independent, controllable and secure network environment, and achieving the goal of becoming a cyber power.

Moreover, at the end of last year, the Future Network Experimental Facility Project, a national key scientific research facility, was officially approved.

The three major operators are taking action to restructure their networks

China Telecom's CTNet2025 is a ten-year plan for network reconstruction. Next, China Telecom needs to do three things: a new future, a new strategy, and new actions to achieve transformation to a future-oriented network.

In terms of network reconstruction, China Telecom expects that by 2020, about 50% of its government and enterprise customers and B2B main networks for large customers will be provided by SDN, and its independently developed SDN controllers will also be put into use. By 2025, more than 80% of network functions will be achieved and large-scale network services will be available.

In 2015, China Unicom developed SDN and NFV technologies and initially established a reconstructed network architecture. This year, China Unicom's DCN network is expected to cover the entire country, launch a large number of cloud networks and services, use SDN and NFV to upgrade traditional communication networks, and gradually realize the intelligence of the network.

China Mobile has proposed the NovoNet plan, hoping to promote the transformation of a network centered on cloud and data to one centered on content and traffic.

Currently, China Mobile has launched a test network project for the NovoNet target and is carrying out it in four cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Guangzhou. The experimental report and results will be released in a while.