Check out these additional IPv6 Resources: |
| Our IPv6 overview course at Udemy |
| Our IPv6 Custom Profiles for Wireshark |
| Our IPv6 classes at the Online School |
I don’t ever like to attempt to look into a crystal ball and predict the future. At best, I would expect my success to be no improvement on using a Chimpanzee to pick between 2 options and have a 50/50 chance of being correct (no offense to Chimpanzees).
Then there are times when one observes the writing on the wall, or examines the tea leaves, whatever those processes used to mean. For example: look at China’s CERNET2 IPv6 network.
Established in 2004, and becoming a pure IPv6 network in 2006, this network set out to link 25 universities with the next generation IP protocol. Today, the network backbone runs IPv6 protocol and connects 25 PoPs distributed in 20 cities in China with the speed of 2.5Gbps/10Gbps. Meanwhile, the transmission rate of Beijing-Wuhan-Guangzhou and Wuhan-Nanjing-Shanghai is 10Gbps. Each PoP provides the 1Gbps/2.5Gbps/10Gbps access capacity for the access network. CNGI-6IX, the domestic/international exchange point, located in Beijing , interconnects to the six network backbones of CNGI, including CERNET2, China Telecom, China Unicom, China Netcom/CSTNET, China Mobile and China Railcom, by 1Gbps/2.5Gbps/10Gbps respectively, and connects with American Internet2 by 155Mbps-2.5Gbps, the European GEANT2 by 1Gbps-2.5Gbps and Asia-Pacific APAN by 1Gbps.
China had only 278 million IPv4 addresses by the end of last year, according to the China Internet Network Information Center, which is too few compared with its 457 million Internet users, the most in the world. Combine this with the fact that less than 30% of China’s current population uses the Internet, and you can quickly understand where this is all going. There are also pending plans to expand this network with a goal of attaching over 1,000 universities.
You can read more about CERNET2 in Wikipedia.
You can also view a presentation on the state of the IPv6 Network in China.
The bottom line is that for China, this will likely be the backbone of the largest IPv6 network in the world.