China has fully launched its IPv6 upgrade plan, heralding the dawn of a new era for the internet.

Recently, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council jointly issued the "Action Plan for Promoting the Large-Scale Deployment of Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)," marking a new phase in the development of China's internet infrastructure. According to the plan, the number of active IPv6 users in China is expected to exceed 200 million by the end of 2018, reach 500 million by the end of 2020, and achieve global leadership in IPv6 scale by the end of 2025.

As the next-generation internet protocol, IPv6 is replacing the IPv4 protocol, which has been in service for over three decades. IPv4, which can only provide about 4.3 billion IP addresses, has long been unable to meet the demands of the mobile internet and the Internet of Things (IoT) era. In contrast, IPv6 adopts a 128-bit address length, offering 2^128 IP addresses—enough to assign an IP address to every grain of sand on Earth—effectively solving the problem of IP address exhaustion.

This IPv6 upgrade will bring significant changes:

Users will obtain fixed public IP addresses, eliminating the need for NAT (Network Address Translation) to use private IP addresses.

By the end of 2020, new network devices will fully adopt IPv6 addresses, gradually phasing out private IPv4 addresses.

Network transmission efficiency will be greatly improved, as IPv6 features a more streamlined packet header structure, enabling higher forwarding efficiency.

In terms of security, IPv6 natively supports the IPSec encryption protocol, making data transmission more secure and reliable. Although IPSec is not a mandatory standard, IPv6 still offers significant security improvements compared to IPv4's plaintext transmission. It is worth noting that the deployment of IPv6 will follow a gradual strategy, ensuring a smooth transition in network regulation and avoiding any loss of control.

This major upgrade will not only drive the leapfrog development of China's internet infrastructure but also lay a solid foundation for the widespread adoption of emerging technologies such as 5G and IoT. With the comprehensive deployment of IPv6, China will occupy a more strategic position in the global development of the internet.