[photopress:ipv6.jpg,full,alignright]China has built its own version of an ultra-fast, next-generation internet network. According to state media this promises to reduce the nation’s dependency on foreign firms.
The China Education and Research Network 2 has linked up 167 institutes and departments at 25 universities in 20 cities through the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).
The present Internet is currently run by Internet Protocol version 4, which is theoretically limited by the numbers of internet addresses that can be created (there are way around this) and arguably lacks advanced security and high-tech functions. Although, again, this is subject to debate.
The new protocol can work at speeds of between 2.5 gigabytes to 10 gigabytes of information per second which is very, very fast. A quick Internet connection is 2 megabytes a second. So this is at least a thousand times as fast as any normal connection.
Will a normal computer handle it? Not easily but this is very much the way of the future with streaming video being a standard Internet offering.
Researchers in the United States, Japan and South Korea are also building IPv6 technologies which fit in with this and which are expected to gain ‘significant global traction’ by 2010. And, no, I have no idea what significant global traction means but it sounds important.
According to IPv6 information posted on the website of Microsoft, IPv6 and IPv4 will be used simultaneously over the coming years as internet operators and home computers gradually take on the new technology.
IPv6 in theory can handle an infinite number of internet addresses, offer better security and be more compatible with mobile phones and handheld computing devices. When Microsoft says it is involved in something that will offer more security some small worries arise.
Chinese researchers received government approval to research and establish the new internet protocol in 2003 with the aim of helping domestic high tech companies build competitive hardware for the next generation internet. Which means that Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks are going to lose a lot of business unless they enter strategic alliances.
Five Chinese telecom operators, including China Telecom and China Mobile, are currently building IPv6 networks, with some of the networks expected to begin trial runs by the end of the year.
Chinese research institutes and manufacturers are also working to standardise and commercialise IPv6 applications and hardware with an eye to make Chinese tech companies more competitive internationally.
Source: EastDay