The New trend of IP Internet Technology－IPv6

The Executive of TWNIC: Chen Wen-sheng
The Engineer of TWNIC: Xie Jia-nan

The Rise of IP Internet
Since 1980, the information technology revolution, headed by the Internet, has gradually changed the concept and structure of traditional telecom. The rapid development is unexampled. In the past 10 years, the increasing rate of global telephone users is about 5% to 10%, but the rate of modem service reaches as high as 25% to 40%. According to the statistics compiled by the Directorate General of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the proportion of modem communication business to operating income of the whole telecom market increased 320%, while 3% in 1996 and 9.61% in 2001. But the proportion of traditional telephone businesses decreased 50%. In the U.S.A., the operating income of some internet modem services has gone beyond the income of telephone services (for example, Pacific Bell). The substitution of the modem service for the telephone business as the main income of the telecom company is a necessary trend. In the long run, the network constructed mainly by modem would gradually replace the traditional telephone network, even the TV network. The modem network would shoulder the mission of transmitting sounds (such as VoIP) and visual messages (such as MoD), the integration of information technology and telecom technology.

Up to the present, the telecom dealers have constructed various networks, such as telephone networks, cable TV networks, Internet networks and so on, to provide the consumers with different services and fulfill their needs. But those networks cannot work together, because they use different standards, devices, and methods of locating IP. After applying to one network company for services, the consumers have to purchase the terminals (telephone machine, TV machine, computer machine) to use the network. In order to manage and maintain their own dependent channels, the dealers has to spend much on the operating cost and transfer the amount of expenses to the consumers. With the rapid development of the Internet, in the future, the design of the communicative network will be based on Internet Protocol (hereinafter IP). The traditional telecom business, such as voice message, modem service, and visual message, will be transferred to IP networks, to break the present situation that different networks are secluded by an open and transparent system.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of IP networks

Why should we abandon traditional telecom networks and use IP networks? The IP network has developed for more than 30 years, but still keeps going. The business quantity develops rapidly and gradually dominates the market of correspondent protocol. The following points sum up the reasons for the successful development:

1. The protocol structure is simple and the efficiency is high:
The protocol TCP/IP used by IP networks is one of the earliest practices of network correspondent protocol in the computer network history. Its structure is simple, clear, and has high transmitting efficiency.

2. Easy to issue or acquire IP:
TIP/IP adapts the open strategy and is easy to access, reducing the exploitation cost for manufacturers. Therefore, the manufactures are inspired to invest in developing various items of application and services.

3. Low communication cost:
Network adapts the packet switching strategy, able to transport many messages to different destinations on a single medium. In this way, the utilizing rate of sources is far higher than traditional Circuit Switching. Because of the rewards for investing in channels and the mainstays, the communicating expense is lower.

Although IP network are the inevitable result, there are some problems to be solved before IP network becomes the single platform of integrated networks:

1. Safety concern:
The original aim for Internet design is to provide researchers with a platform to exchange information-- so the safety system is not considered in designing correspondent protocol. However, with the continuous development of various network applications for industry and e-commerce, we gradually take account of the safety concerns. Because of the structure design, the messages through the Internet tend to be intercepted. Therefore, to prevent various attacks, such as electronic wiretaps, fabrication, data modification, or Man-in-the-Middle and so on, applying programs have to maintain the authentication, completeness, and safety of the data by encryption and identification-authenticating technology. However, the standard of the technology applied to applying programs is not unified, so they cannot work together, resulting in the waste of overlapping investment. Many programs do not protect the information, or simply adapt very simple protection measures. This will damage the privacy of both ends in communicating. Despite the availability of IPSEC now, the deficiency in a common and open PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) and the suspense of many proven digital laws hinder the establishment and direction of PKI and influence various manufacturers to produce PKI-ready.

2. Non-guarantee for service quality:
Compared with Circuit Switching networks, Packaging networks have more uncertain factors in the process of communication. This kind of communication adapts the best-effort method, not considering the content of packages, transporting them in the same way. They do not guarantee the quality. For the internet services, such as exploring the homepages and reading e-mails, the transporting time and service quality is not important. But the services such as telephone and visual messages do not permit any delay. Ideally the Internet should distinguish transporting orders according to various packages, like lane-division of express and regular, to fulfill different needs for Internet application.

3. The quantity of IP Address:
The quantity of IP address is limited. Take the present IPv4 address for example. It can distribute 40 hundred billions of IP address. That is to say, the average quantity of IP address for every people in the world is less than one. Facing the divergence of future and the Internet application of IP era, the quantity appears deficient because the PC, PDA, mobile phone, automobile of one person would be a part of Internet, and each of them need a IP address. Although we now have NAT (Network Address Translation) to solve the IP quantity problems temporarily, the transparent Internet and the ideal of end-to-end communication has been broken. Therefore, we cannot adapt it in all aspects.

4. The Cooperation of Related laws and Strategy
In addition to the concerns about technology, transporting telephone and visual messages through IP network has to deal with complex law problems and probably causes the insistence and protest of traditional business dealers. Those uncertain factors, reconciling task, the long time for legislating laws, and the lateral cost problems might block the procedure of new application.

The New trend of Network Technology－IPv6
In order to improve the function and expansion of IP, since 1990, IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) has been launching the development project of next generation IP correspondent protocol. Among several propositions, IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) was chosen, and became the standard. IPv6 has the address of 16 bytes and offers advanced function such as QoS (Quality of Service), network safety support and so on. The following is the statement of these properties:

1. IPv6 headline:
IPv6 refines the format of IPv4 package headline. In addition to remove part of the fields, IPv6 adds or expands the original fields to improve their function.
■ In order to solve the problems of address deficiency thoroughly, the source address field and destination address field of IPv6 packages expand from 32 bits to 128 bits and the field size expands four times, but the address quantity expands 296 times. IPv6 presents the address in the format of decimalized lattice while IPv6 presents in the format of sexadecimal, to present 128 bit as 16 bit, and separate them by a column, like: 2001:0C58: 0000:0000:0000:FF11:3A6B:0001.
■ IPv6 simplifies or cancels several fields of IPv4, such as IP Header Length, Identification, Flags, Fragment Offset, Header Checksum, Type of Service, all replaced by Traffic Class field. Besides, IPv6 improves fields such as Length, Protocol Type and Time To Live.
■ IPv6 adds two new fields－Traffic Class and Flow Labels and sustains the needs of instant Real Time messages.
■ IPv6 modifies the options system of IPv4, replaced by different types of extension headers, located in the Ipv6 header and payload data. In this way, the length of an IPv6 header is fixed so that the router does not have to check the header length, improving the efficiency of processing packaging.

FIG 3. Comparison of IPv4 Packet and IPv6 Packet.

2. Sustenance for Quality of Service:
The flow label fields in IPv6 headers are used to distinguish various packages, which should be processed in the same way, to assist the process of real-time messages. The sending end marks serial packages by a group of choices. The router keeps tracing the message flow. Because IPv6 does not have to process every package header, it can process the packages, which have the same message flow, in an efficient way.
IPv6 routing extension headers are used to do special route setting while Hop-By-Hop extension headers are used to send controlling messages, to inform all the routers on line. Hop-By-Hop choice extension headers have to transmit the choice data, which is checked by every spot on the packaging line. For example, Hop-By-Hop choice headers are used to offer the RSVP service, and routers can reserve resources for specific message flow, to fulfill the needs of QoS.

3.The Improvement of Network safety:
In order to improve the authenticating function in the IP level, the authentication extension headers of IPv6 in the IP packages offer the completeness of all end-to-end connections and the authentication. In the standard, Ipv6 defines the calculating methods of the safety check amount of the two pre-chosen assistances: the Keyed MD-5 and SHA-1. They assist the work of sending data and authenticating headers.
In the assistance of encryption, the ESP (extension header of encryption safety in sending data) can offer the protection of confidentiality and completeness of end-to-end data in every package. Besides, IPv6 standard defines a password calculating method of pre-chosen assistance: DES-CBC (Data Encryption Standard-Code Block Chain) assists the encryption work of data and headers.

4. Mobile IP:
In IPv4 and IPv6, the address of sub-network or prefix can be changed according to the type of network we connect to. When the mobile points change their access points on the Internet, they will have a new IP address. This IP address might disconnect TCP or UDP. There are two address types in mobile IP: one is a fixed home address, used to connect TCP. The other is care of address. This address is changed according to the current network. In order to maintain operation, mobile IP needs a home agent. When mobile IP is not in the original network, the home agent would transfer the packages to the address of mobile points. When mobile points move to a different network, it has to inform the original agent of the new address. In mobile IPv4, there is a foreign agent in the foreign network, to assist the mobile point to receive data packages. The feature of IPv6, in the operation of mobile IP, is simpler. Mobile IPv6 does not need a foreign agent, because the function of automatic settings and neighbor discoveries is built in IPv6.

International Ipv6 Development State
Around the world, many countries have invested in the development and promotion of IPv6 techniques. Neighboring countries in the Asia-pacific area such as the Japanese government and Korean government, have invested a huge amount of money (Japan- ¥8,000,000,000 in March, 2001 and Korean- KRW$ 12,000,000,000 from 2003 to 2006), to enhance the promotion and development work of IPv6. The Japanese government sponsored establishment of the “IPv6 Promotion Council” in March 2001. This council is responsible for making an overall plan of various promotion activities domestically and overseas, to encourage the dealers of communication, computers, and information, and home electric appliances to develop IPv6 application. There are more than 1000 related activities and product projects going on in Japan, the nation whose IPv6 development is the fastest and has achieved the most. With the economic development, the need for IP addresses in the P.R.C. is increasing, so they develop and promote IPv6 actively. In addition to subscribing official-level IPv6 cooperating memorandum with Japan, they hold large-scale international IPv6 symposia several times per year. All of them attract large number of domestic and foreign manufacturers to join. The P.R.C. has become the future market location of the world’s focus.

In Europe, the EU Commission suggested formally that every government and industry should support IPv6 and formed an IPv6 Task Force under an EU administration system, the IPv6 development blueprint of the European area. At present, there are 31 cross-nation research projects related to IPv6 in the Europe, 37 nations included, more than 100 institutes joining, and amounting to 156,000,000. Because the U.S.A. is the nation that gave birth to the Internet, they have a large stock of IPv4 address. Dealers hold reserved attitudes toward IPv6 generally. However, in order to fulfill the needs of Europe and Asia, main network manufacturers of network devices and systems, such as Cisco, Juniper, Microsoft, Sun, HP, Compaq and so on, have offered IPv6 sustenance and form specialized development forces, fitting IPv6 into the product standard, and take part in international conferences and international standards formulation.

The Current State of IPv6 Development of Our Nation
Until December 2002, there have been 8 ISPs of our nation to obtain IPv6 addresses, third place in terms of quantity in the Asia-Pacific area. Among them, HiNet is the first ISP to provide the service of IPv6 with their clients. As far as research is concerned, the National Science Council, Industry Technology Research Center, universities and colleges, CHTTL-TW and so on, have proceeded with IPv6 projects for many years. The most important landmark of native IPv6 development is the establishment of “NCIC IPv6 promotion force of the Executive Yuan” and formulation of the “native IPv6 establishment and development project.”

In order to catch up with the steps of advanced nations, and integrate the IPv6 sources of native academic and industrial fields, NICI (National Information and Communication Initiative) resolved to form an IPv6 promotion force, whose general convener is the government administration committee member of the Executive Yuan, Tsai Chin-Yen, and the director of Directorate General of Ministry of Transportation and Communications, Jian Ren-de. The members of the force includes National Science Council, Ministry of Economic Affairs, National Telecom Program Office, universities and colleges, research institutes, TWNIC, Institute for Information Industry, Computer and Communications Research Laboratories of Industrial Technology Research Institute, Academia Sinica, National Center for High-performance computing, Chuan Hwa Telecom, dealers related to fixed networks and ISP.

Ipv6 construction is an overall network revolutionary work, involving a large amount of device-updated cost expense and human resource investment. Therefore, many manufacturers hold wait-and-see attitudes toward Ipv6. However, in the international competitive environment, we would probably lose our chance if we wait for the market system to move forward. In order to take advantage of suitable time and points of Taiwan industry features, the force worked hard to formulate “native IPv6 establishment and development project, ” to promote the construction of IPv6 in several stages. This project now is in the main items of Digital Taiwan challenge of 2008: six year national development project (2002-2007). From 2003, the government policy and capital will help develop IPv6 in our nation.

The enabling of the plan is divided into five facets from the viewpoint of the industry:
1. IPv6 Network Construction
In order to popularize Ipv6 terminal application, primarily we need faultless network foundation construction, a network environment, which supports Ipv6. How does the Directorate General of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and National Center for High-performance computing, which is responsible for grouping construction, play the role of locomotive, in the initial stage of IPv6 network construction and application promotion, to assist dealers of fixed network, wireless telecom and network ISP to complete foundation construction, which support IPv6 functions, one of the most important tasks in this project? In order to accelerate the IPv4-IPv6 transferring process, each group of researchers will improve every category of transferring techniques and interflowing system.

2. Encouraging industries to insert TPv6 function to their digital devices
The information product amount of our nation is fourth in the world. It is a very important issue to know how to insert Ipv6 into digital devices, such as network terminal devices, IA devices, and home electronic appliances, which our nation specialized in, to increase product functions and bonus values, and raise our competition ability. This project helped form IPv6 Forum Taiwan in April 2002. The Computer and Communications Research Laboratories of Industrial Technology Research Institute united related manufacturers to boost the birth of the IPv6 industry development association. We hope that it can unite the Ministry of Economic Affairs Program, to assist industry to insert Ipv6 in their product, corresponding to the future needs of network points. The standard test group would form a “ National IPv6 Test Center” to offer the test service on the connecting and authenticating part.

3. Offering IPv6 Killer Applications of IPv6:
IPv6 application potential is immense, but in promoting we should adapt stage goals, using limited sources to complete the best efficiency. In the initial stage of promoting, the key goal is to confirm the environment suitable for our overall industry, the key application service. The stem construction and application promotion group will try to proceed some key application service of Ipv6 since 2003, such as mobile network wandering, handy SIP terminal device (including 3G), ADSL with family device, and IPv6 visual service, to increase the users of IPv6.

4. Encouraging International Cooperation
Because the Internet is a cross-nation platform, if we limit the technique development in a nation or region, the effect will be reduced. The world considers cross-nation projects important items and various national organizations or governments subscribe cooperation agreement compacts or memorandums with each other, to enhance cooperation relationships and ensure the unified standard of each nation’s product and service. This project tries hard to boost international cooperation, plans to subscribe cooperation agreement with Japan and European Alliances, and then proceed with two-side cooperation development with Korea and the P.R.C.

5. Encouraging political policy and measures:
In the initial stage of IPv6 construction, it is a key factor for the government to take good use of political policy and laws to help dealers update devices and transfer platforms. The Japanese government carried out the policy that telecom dealers and ISP, who construct IPv6 networks, can reduce their purchase tax and 0 rate loan (not low rate). This project would collect every nation’s policy and measures and collect manufacturers’ comments to be a reference for formulating promoting political policy.

New Network Thinking－Internet for everything
In the past, we put emphasis on “Internet for everyone.” However, the development of IPv6 will change our thinking patterns, and create infinite potential and imagination space. At that time, devices beside us like refrigerators, air conditioners, stereos, doors and windows, heaters, tabletop cooking devices with one or two burners, microwave ovens, photo frames, mobile phones and so on will be connected to the Internet. And the era of “the Internet for everything” is coming.

When various countries develop IPv6, promoting IPv6 is of great urgency for our country, to maintain the predominance which our IT industry possesses. We should take IPv6 seriously with foresight and creative thinking and innovative action, to dominate the flow of future networks. While Taiwan’s traditional industry needs to be changed and technology is going to be upgraded, IPv6 gives us hope.

Internet for everything. IPv6 is the answer!

Illustration 1. Use the overall IP network to break the lines between different networks.
Illustration 2. The integrated network based on TCP/IP
Illustration 3. The comparison between IPv4 and IPv6
Illustration 4. The relationship between IPv6 establishment development project and e-Taiwan.
Illustration 5 Japanese government’s tax reduction for IPv6 device purchase tax (Resource: Japanese General affairs Province)

New Network Thinking－Internet for everything
In the past, we put emphasis on “Internet for everyone.” However, the development of IPv6 will change our thinking patterns, and create infinite potential and imagination space. At that time, devices beside us like refrigerators, air conditioners, stereos, doors and windows, heaters, tabletop cooking devices with one or two burners, microwave ovens, photo frames, mobile phones and so on will be connected to the Internet. And the era of “the Internet for everything” is coming.

When various countries develop IPv6, promoting IPv6 is of great urgency for our country, to maintain the predominance which our IT industry possesses. We should take IPv6 seriously with foresight and creative thinking and innovative action, to dominate the flow of future networks. While Taiwan’s traditional industry needs to be changed and technology is going to be upgraded, IPv6 gives us hope.

Internet for everything. IPv6 is the answer!

Illustration 1. Use the overall IP network to break the lines between different networks.
Illustration 2. The integrated network based on TCP/IP
Illustration 3. The comparison between IPv4 and IPv6
Illustration 4. The relationship between IPv6 establishment development project and e-Taiwan.
Illustration 5 Japanese government’s tax reduction for IPv6 device purchase tax (Resource: Japanese General affairs Province)