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China is running out of IP addresses

Unless it makes the switch to IPv6
Wednesday, 24 September 2008, 10:03

CHINA'S TEEMING MILLIONS rushing to get online will exhaust its available network addresses by 2011, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).

CNNIC projects that the country will run out of available IPv4 addresses within about 830 days at the current rate of new Internet connectivity demand.

Li Kai, CNNIC international director of IP business, said that further expansion of China's network operators will become impossible once all assigned blocks of IPv4 addresses are allocated to end-users.

Li said that IPv6 networking provides unrestricted IP addressing space, but IPv6 networks have so far been installed only at educational institutions in China. Transitioning Chinese Internet infrastructure to IPv6 networks can alleviate the looming addressing shortage, but that will require China's Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to spend a lot of time and money.

CNNIC is hosting seminars with the country's ISPs urging them to apply soon for needed IP addressing allocations and begin preparations for the future transition to IPv6 networking. ยต

L'Inq
China Tech News

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Comments
This should be really simple

For a country that likes to clamp down on internet usage, they need exactly 1 public IP, and make everyone go through NAT. That solves your problem of excessive gaming, using VPN to get around web service blocks, etc. Most networks do not need to be built around public IPs; nearly all would suffice with consolidating down to 1 IP and using a NAT server, and China would get lots of "side benefits" from the deal too.

posted by : Dan, 24 September 2008 Complain about this comment
Why don't they just steal some?

China is the large thief of intellectual property in the history of the world, so why not steal that too?

posted by : Truth Teller, 24 September 2008 Complain about this comment
umm

Since there are a maximum number of 65535 ports how are you expecting to fit 1 IP address to a country of over 1.3 billion people...
Just because you can fit that many people within a subnet VLSM or not, the outgoing IP at the main "1 ip" router to the internet will be the same with NAT (set to overload which would actally be port address translation) for all users? you cannot fit a billion people into 1 ip address, atleast not for internet use. Also, many higher level protocols such as FTP require separate connections for control traffic commands/handshakes.
how about we take some CISCO classes before making network design proposals?

posted by : taylor, 24 September 2008 Complain about this comment
No they're not....

If you want to sell kit to China (don't laugh, it happens) then it needs to be IPv6. They're big on it in Asia.

I suspect the "Great Firewall" is also "The Great NAT Box" since the rest of us are happy with IPv4. One address won't do because of the limited number of sockets.

Personally I hate IPv6 because the address space is too large (we know exactly who you are....no use hiding.....) and the packet headers are variable length (makes for inefficient packet handling). But then who am I to comment on such things...

posted by : Martin, 24 September 2008 Complain about this comment
NAT is limited

Assuming every person only used 1 port (that is, basic applications that use only a single connection at a time), NAT will enable up to about 64000 users per public IP. But it is even less than that because every user has multiple programs running, each program may use multiple ports at a time

posted by : asdf, 25 September 2008 Complain about this comment
Bridge for Sale

Great post Teller! I have just what you are looking for, fully furnished for immediate sale and ready for you to live under.

posted by : anon, 25 September 2008 Complain about this comment
and ignorance strikes again

"Personally I hate IPv6 because the address space is too large (we know exactly who you are....no use hiding.....) and the packet headers are variable length (makes for inefficient packet handling). But then who am I to comment on such things..."
Ummm.... It's IPv4 that has variable packet headers. IPv6 makes them fixed.

And "no use hiding"? Wtf? You mean because you might get a dedicated IP? That's hardly a property of IPv6 itself, and I'm sure you can find ISP's who'll assign IP's dynamically.

But sure, don't let facts get in the way of something that might solve a lot of problems.

posted by : grumpy, 26 September 2008 Complain about this comment
Multiple NATs

Actually, cascaded NAT can be used provide simple Internet service for more than 65,000 people. Although cascaded NAT means limited range of IP services... (many online applications would not work ...)

posted by : Eximer, 28 September 2008 Complain about this comment
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