- China Mobile announced on June 9 that the company's TD-LTE (Time Division-Long Term Evolution) network will be poised for a smooth transition to IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) - the successor of IPv4 - within the next five years, the Sina Tech News reported on June 9, citing deputy director of the China Mobile Research Institute's Development of Network Technology, Duan Xiaodong. In addition, China Mobile is also set to begin testing TD-LTE data cards supporting IPv6 in the second half of 2011. Duan also revealed that China Mobile has already developed a prototype device supporting both TD-LTE and IPv6.
According to Duan, China Mobile's IPv6 commercialization will be divided into three phases: the first phase (2011-2013) is the inception phase where China Mobile will focus on the promoting industry supply chain to sure it is mature enough to support IPv6 and set up demonstration networks on a large-scale; the second phase (2014-2015) is the promotion phase where China Mobile will launch IPv6 pre-commercial demonstration networks, focusing on streamlining the demonstration networks and ensuring end-market equipment with the support of IPv6 by 2015; the third phase (2016-2020) is the application phase where China Mobile will focus on developing a large-scale user base and promoting IPv6 services and applications.
Meanwhile, it is learnt that China Telecom also has officially begun performing IPv6 testing on its own homepage at the beginning of June, the Sohu IT News reported on June 9. Initially, the company's server system will support both IPv4 and IPv6 connections and provide different website content, depending on which protocol that users use to access its homepage. China Telecom's IPv6 commercialization will also be divided into three phases: during the first phase (2009-2010), China Telecom focused on launching IPv6 pre-commercial demonstration networks; during the second phase (2012-2015), China Telecom will launch IPv6 scale commercial networks; and during the third phase (2015 and onwards), China Telecom will focus on the large-scale commercialization of IPv6 networks.
The Chinese Academy of Engineering also revealed that to date, of the total IPv6 addresses, 44.5% are allocated by Brazil, 11% by the United States, 7.3% by Japan and 0.29% by China, according again to the Sohu IT News.