After wide application of the first generation Internet,
problems such as network security, network capacity, speed and
mobility became apparent. Starting in the mid-1990s, many developed
countries like the United States began to research the next
generation Internet in an attempt to solve these problems.
"Our nation has quickly caught up in the development of the next
generation Internet and has made outstanding achievements. However,
if we don't pay enough attention to these projects, we will lose
our voice in this field," Professor Wu Jianping with Tsinghua
University stressed in a recent interview with
Outlook
Weekly.
According to Wu, with strengthened economy, improved technology
and formation of an extensive domestic network consumption market,
China has met the basic requirements for developing a large-scale
next generation Internet. "The next two to three years will be a
crucial period for development. We must be aware of the urgency to
develop the next generation Internet."
U.S. dominates core Internet technologies.
"Currently the U.S. is leading the commonly used first
generation Internet, dominating its core technologies in key fields
like protocols, standards and products and gaining benefits from
the new economy brought about by the Internet," Professor Zhang
Hongke, President of the School of Electronics and Information
Engineering at Beijing Jiaotong University, told Outlook
Weekly.
The first Internet survey taken in 1997 showed that Chinese
netizens totaled less than one million. Their number rose to 100
million seven years later and broadband users accounted for one
fourth of the total user population; Internet users reached 172
million this past September.
The Internet industry chain represented by computers,
communication facilities, and network and other related facilities
have brought a driving force to the economic development of both
China and the world. Statistics show that the national electronic
industry output values increased more than 10 times and the export
of electronic products increased several dozen times from 1994 to
2004. A group of large enterprises including Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo,
and Sina rapidly sprang up. China is heading for an information
society and its e-commerce, e-government, and distance education
have achieved rapid development.
Currently the network address allocation is not balanced, with
more than 70 percent assigned to North America, according to
Professor Zhang. Address distribution imbalance has seriously
hindered China's ability to develop an information society.
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"No intellectual property rights, no right to speak. Due to a lack
of core technologies, we have to pay high patent expenses in
building the first and second generation mobile networks," Zhang
said. In order to get rid of this trouble, China must develop a
brand new Internet with self-owned intellectual property rights.
With completely new architecture, this Internet will be able to
overcome all the existing network defects.
Internet faces serious technological challenges
As one of the leading forces behind Chinese Internet technology,
Professor Wu believes that the Internet with IPv4 (the fourth
generation of Internet Protocol) as its core technology, developed
in the 1980s, is plagued with serious technological challenges:
insufficient network addresses (IP) prevent the expansion of
Internet; serious loopholes existing in network security undermine
people's trust in the Internet; weak control of network quality
fails to guarantee high quality network services; broadband and its
function fail to meet users' demands; and, traditional wireless
mobile communication and Internet belong to different technological
systems, making it difficult to effectively connect them with each
other.
Currently the commonly used Internet IPv4 adopts 32-figure
addresses and has a total of 4.3 billion IP addresses, mostly owned
by the United States, leaving less than 800 million addresses to be
distributed globally outside of America. Based on the present
address distribution speed, one international organization forecast
that all IPv4 addresses would run out by 2011 and that the IPv4
addresses of five regional Internet registries (RIR) would run out
by 2012.
Prof. Zhang who is now presiding over a research project on the
architecture of universal network and pervasive services also
pointed out that the first generation Internet built based on IPv4
has original design defects. Despite its wide use, it has many
limitations in network security and network mobility.
According to Zhang, the location information of IP addresses also
includes the users' personal information. Currently various network
security problems – rampant network viruses; constant vicious
network attacks; router system failing to identify the credibility
of data sources; extreme difficulty in tracking down network
troublemakers; users' worries about the disclosure of sensitive
network information and privacy – have seriously affected the
security of the national economy, society, and military system with
their increased dependence on Internet. Due to its weak
systematization of security technology, today's Internet can only
passively react to the aforementioned problems and is unable to
resolve them completely.
The first generation Internet IPv4 was designed for use in a
fixed network environment, without considering wireless and mobile
environments, so it runs into limitations. The fastest developed
cell phone wireless communication mainly adopts two cellular mobile
communication technologies: GSM and CDMA. Their chief service is
the low speed voice wireless mobile communication. They belong to a
technological system completely different from the Internet. Even
though a user can visit the Internet via a cell phone, the speed is
very slow due to the limitations of the information volume passing
through the voice channel.
In recent years Internet wireless access technologies like WiFi
and WiMax developed rapidly. Besides laptops' convenient access to
the Internet, various kinds of wireless mobile terminals have
emerged and greatly increased Internet mobility. "One of the
technological challenges facing the next generation Internet is to
learn successful lessons from current wireless mobile communication
technologies and create a real mobile Internet," said Zhang.
IPv6 is released
Considering the limitations of IPv4, IPv6, a data packet
transformation for the next generation Internet, was designed and
officially released by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
in 1995 to deal with the rapid development of the Internet. The
source address and destination address (IPv6 addresses for short)
of the next generation Internet are represented with 128 binary
elements, which have reserved a large amount of address space for
expansion. IPv6 has also reserved space for coping with the
technical challenges of Internet security, high-performance
transmission, quality service guarantees, and mobile
communications.
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The technology is highly experimental and was developed through
technological experiments, testing, and innovation. The basic
concept of the Internet was invented in 1974, the IPv4 was designed
and released in 1978 and the NSFNET, which is the first network
backbone adopting IPv4 on a large scale around the world, was
designed in America in 1986. From the preliminary establishment of
IPv4 Internet in 1988 to the current global IPv4 Internet, another
20 years have passed. The Internet technology has improved and
progressed over this time and the application of the technology
also has been continuously innovated and developed.
China at the forefront of IPv6 experimental
networks
Research on Internet technology began in China in the late 1970s.
Besides learning how to design, establish and operate the Internet,
the engineering technicians in China started their initial research
and development in 1994. The Chinese technicians have overcome key
technological problems including IPv4 core routers and IPv6 core
routers as well as key software of the Internet and its
application.
Supported by the CERNET, Tsinghua University established the
first virtual IPv6 test bed in China in 1998, and combined the test
bed with 6Bone, which is the test bed of the international IPv6
next generation Internet.
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China,
the first regional experimental network of the next generation
Internet in China was successfully completed in Beijing at the end
of 2000. The experimental network has adopted advanced DWDM
technology and connected six nodes. A batch of Internet
applications has been developed and the experimental network has
passed the Internet2 of America, which realized the equal
combination between the experimental network of China's Next
Generation Internet (CNGI) and the International Next Generation
Internet.
During the 2000-2006 period, a batch of exploratory projects on
the new generation Internet and its application were supported by
the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the "863
Program". The "973 Program" also began to support basic research
projects of the new generation Internet and its application during
the 2000-2003 period.
In March 2002, 57 academics advised the central government to
build "academic high speed network backbones of the second
generation internet," which has been flagged as important by the
State Council; "The Next Generation Internet Development Strategy
Research" Specialist Committee was established in August 2002 and a
strategy research report was finished in October; and, headed by
the Chinese Academy of Engineering, "China's Next Generation
Internet Demonstrating Projects " was initiated in August 2003.
China is the first country to build massive IPv6-only networks,
and proposed real source address identification based on IPv6,
which ensures the construction of a secured CNGI. Chinese
scientists first worked out "IPv6overIPv4," which is a transitional
technical solution. In addition, the first large-scale adoption of
homemade IPv6 routers in the national network backbones has
provided an environment for testing the homemade products, which is
helpful for the improvement of IPv6 core routers.
Promoting next generation Internet development as a
national strategy
As a prestigious academic leader, Professor Zhang and his
scientific research team developed China's first IPv6 router in
2000. Four years later, the team managed to produce an IPv6
wireless mobile router independently. The technology led the whole
world at that time, but "the router has not been put into the
market even now."
According to Zhang, the competent authorities should develop a
clear understanding of the Internet's significant role in social
and economic development. Given the current situation of the
Chinese market and the Internet industry, he suggests that more
efforts be made to promote the development and application of the
next generation Internet.
China has made a major breakthrough in the design and production
of the IPv6 router, which is the most important device for the next
generation Internet, Zhang said. In the future, the country should
work hard to produce relevant products and services in larger
quantity, at a cheaper price, but with better quality. Products and
services, such as network technologies, major devices, and computer
terminations, will combine to play a significant part in the
widespread application of the next generation Internet, he
added.
Professor Wu also said that "currently, some of our Internet
technologies are leading the world and we own the sole intellectual
property right of the core router and some other devices for the
next generation Internet. However, our technical competence is
still weak. The government should adopt more policies in the favor
of the next generation Internet. So far, the relevant authorities
and telecom operators have not understood the necessity and
emergency of developing next generation Internet. In China, there
are fewer applications for IPv6 addresses than for IPv4 addresses."
Some experts have suggested a national plan for the research of
the next generation Internet. They believe it would be of great
strategic importance to the country's development. The deployment
of IPv6 network should be deemed a national strategy and related
measures should be carried out rigorously. Presently, there are a
huge number of IPv6 addresses, but future network demand is
unpredictable. Sooner or later, the space will be fully occupied
and by that time, IPv6 address will become a precious strategic
resource. In view of such a situation, these experts suggest that
China accelerate its pace of IPv6 address application and seize
every opportunity to acquire this strategic resource.
Characteristics of the next generation
Internet
Over the past 10 years, many developed countries have earmarked
huge amounts of manpower and money to the research of the next
generation Internet. Extensive exchanges have been promoted on the
international stage, but after a decade-long research and exchange
period researchers are still unable to make a precise definition of
the next generation Internet or to explain its major difference
from the current Internet. Presently, there is only a unanimous
agreement that the next generation Internet will be larger, faster,
safer, more punctual, more convenient, more manageable, and more
profitable.
To be "larger" means the next-generation Internet will be
available for all kinds of electronic devices in addition to the
computer system we are currently using. It will provide access for
a larger number of diversified terminal devices, thus achieving a
larger scale and a wider application.
To be "faster" refers to the data transmission speed of the next
generation Internet. The end-to-end data transmission speed should
range between 10Mbps and 100Mbps, thus providing guarantees for the
operation of the more complicated next generation Internet.
To be "safer" means that the next generation Internet, featuring
state-of-the-art technologies, will be capable of object
identification, user ID authentication, and network access
authorization while sticking to the principles of openness,
convenience and mutual sharing. With distinct advantages in data
encryption and data integrity, the network will have a sounder
structure that ensures the validity and traceability of data, thus
providing safer and more reliable services for users.
To be "more punctual" means the next generation Internet will
adopt effective and reliable methods to control the quality of
online services that the current network is incapable of. The next
generation Internet will offer users more complicated services like
multicasting, large-scale video broadcasting and real-time
interaction.
To be "more convenient" means that the next generation Internet
will apply advanced wireless mobile telecommunication technologies,
thus ensuring users can enjoy Internet and telecommunication
service anywhere at any time.
To be "more manageable" means the next generation Internet will
overcome the current difficulty of precise network management. With
smaller network elements and stronger managerial skill, the next
generation Internet will achieve an orderly management, an
effective operation, and a timely maintenance.
To be "more profitable" means the next generation Internet will
bring benefits to all parties by adopting a new profit-making mode.
Featuring rationalism, fairness and harmony, the new mode will
change the current situation where network operators work hard to
build up a well-functioning platform but keep losing money, while
online information providers earn huge profit by taking advantage
of the established network.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Ming'ai, Yang Xi and Chen Xia, November
23, 2007)
