In response to the Action Plan of Promoting Wide-Range IPv6 Deployment issued by the General Office of State Council and the Central Committee, the 2018 China IPv6 Development Forum was held in Beijing by the Expert Commission of Wide-Range IPv6 Deployment Promotion during the 2018 China Internet Conference on July 12th. Over 700 people attended the forum, among which are representatives from government departments, universities, research institutions, ISP, Internet enterprises and equipment manufacturing enterprises.

Developing IPv6 is one of the most significant task of Internet upgrading, a major support to the quality development of economy, and at the same time a requirement of advantage-taking in the future international competition, Yang Xiaowei, Vice Minister of CAC, observed in his speech. Both the Central Committee and the State Council put great emphasis on IPv6 deployment, and a series of related official documents that have already been issued are testaments to their efforts toward universal IPv6 deployment. Last November, the Action Plan of Promoting Wide-Range IPv6 Deployment specified the general targets, measures, timetables and important tasks of the development towards China’s IPv6-based next generation Internet, providing a guidance to the wide-range IPv6 deployment in China. 

Zhang Feng, the Chief Engineer of MIIT, noted in his speech that developing the IPv6-based next generation Internet is a trend of Internet upgrading and also an urgent requirement of the quality economical development facilitated by an in-depth integration of Internet and real economy. It means a great deal to the country’s general competitiveness in the space of Internet. Ever since the plan’s release, united efforts of related fields have made great achievements. In terms of Internet infrastructure, the three top ISPs (China Mobile, Telecome and Unicom) have completed the IPv6 reform of LTE network in 26 provinces and more a hundred cities, and over 70 million the LTE network users have been allocated IPv6 address. As for application infrastructure, the big data centers of ISPs are now IPv6-friendly, with the testing process of IPv6 services already started and some of the products completed IPv6 reform and ready to provide business services. And in the case of Internet applications, major Internet enterprises have also made thorough reform plans for the popular Internet applications and completed some of the targets. The major LTE terminals are generally IPv6-friendly, and most of the terminal configurations can accommodate both IPv4 and IPv6.

Vice-President of SASAC Zhou Mi gave a brief account of its effort in wide-range IPv6 deployment. It has reinforced the work assignation by holding two major conferences in May and July to specify the requirements. It has also promoted the IPv6 deployment by evaluating the performances of telecom enterprises. Furthermore, it has helped to make a universal IPv6 reform plan, including the IPv6 reform of over 2000 websites tasks that will have been completed by the end of this year. And next, SASAC will continue to promote the central enterprises’ plan-related work. It hopes that departments such as MIIT and CAC will support the work of central enterprises, which are to make greater contributions to the wide-range IPv6 deployments in the near future.

During the forum, China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom held the IPv6 digital service launching ceremony of LTE Network. Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, JD, and the three major telecom enterprises respectively issued a 2018 IPv6 reform plan and operation targets. Experts from research institutes, Internet enterprises and telecom equipment manufacturing enterprises had an in-depth discussion about the key issues surrounding the IPv6 reform of Internet infrastructure, application infrastructure and Internet applications.