New IP And Emerging Communications Technologies

 New IP, Shaping Future Network

- Overview

It has been observed that due to technological and commercial developments, the Internet has slowly "split" into many networks (ManyNets). 

Interconnection between these networks is a challenge due to incompatible addressing mechanisms. In addition, emerging applications such as augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) and holographic communications have put forward new requirements for the network, involving countless physical and virtual objects, requiring more efficient and customized network services.

The Internet Protocol (IP) currently designed to connect regional academic and military networks was invented half a century ago. The original IP design concepts of fixed address lengths and tying machines to specific locations are no longer sufficient to meet these challenges. 

A novel framework for future Internet protocols, called new IP, aims to address the above challenges and meet the requirements of future applications. New IP inherently supports variable length and multi-semantic network addresses as well as user-definable networks.

- IPv6

The latest version of Internet Protocol (IP) is IPv6. IPv6 was designed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It is designed to solve the problem of IPv4 address exhaustion.  

• IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses to ensure there are enough addresses to last into the 21st century and beyond. 
• IPv6 was designed to complement and eventually replace IPv4, which is still used by many Internet services today. 
• IPv6 provides an identification and location system for computers on a network and routes traffic on the Internet. It is capable of providing an unlimited number of addresses. 

- The New IP Framework

New IP is a series of proposals for a new framework for future Internet protocols. These proposals were submitted to the ITU and IETF and presented at various IEEE conferences between 2018 and 2020. 

New IP is an advanced network protocol specification designed to modernize the network layer without changing the Internet infrastructure. It envisions a new header format with three functional characteristics: shipping specification, contract specification, and payload specification.

The new IP can:

• Variable length and polysemantic network addresses
• User definable network 

Huawei describes “New IP” as: “New IP can be characterized as a technology study initiative, driven by a vision on scenarios for utilizing Internet technologies in many facets of the future digital industry and society. As such research initiative, it is centered on study areas that address aspects of the Internet data plane as well as its associated architecture, technologies and protocols.”

- IPV9

IPV9 is a network protocol that combines TCP/IP and circuit switching. The goal of IPV9 is to allow the addresses of IPv4, IPv6, and IPV9 to be used simultaneously on the internet.

IPV9 includes three technologies: 

• A new address coding design.
• A new addressing mechanism.
• A new address architecture design.

IPV9 has a larger address space than IPv4 and IPv6: 

• IPv4: Defines the bit length of an IP address is 32, for a total of 232-1 addresses.
• IPv6: Defines the bit length of an IP address is 128, for a total of 2128-1 addresses.
• IPV9: Defines the standard length of an IP address is 2256-1, with a 42 layer address structure design of 10256-1.

IPV9 was proposed in 1998 by a Chinese researcher. The V in IPV9 is uppercase, not lowercase, to distinguish it from IPv4 and IPv6. Some say that IPv9 addresseable consumer packaging is a topic of hot debate. Marketing people see it as a godsend, being able to get feedback on how products are actually used.

- Comparison of Future Network IPv4, IPv6, and IPV9

IPv4 is the most widely used protocol on the Internet, with an address space of 232. In the early stages of the Internet, IP resources were very limited due to underestimation of the development of the Internet. 

By 2010, there were no more addresses to assign. In order to solve the problem of insufficient addresses, IETF designed the next-generation IPv6 protocol to replace IPv4. IPv6 theoretically has 2128 addresses, but in fact only one-eighth of the addresses can be assigned to end users. Currently, the 128 barcode already has 128 bits and cannot be covered, so IPv6 has considerable limitations. 

In 1998, Chinese researchers proposed IPV9. To distinguish it from IPv4 and IPv6, the V in IPv9 is uppercase instead of lowercase. IPV9 includes three technologies: new address encoding design, new addressing mechanism and new address architecture design. These technologies constitute the core technology system underlying the new generation of IP networks. The new network framework designed on this basis can form a network system that is interconnected and compatible with the existing network. 

IPV9 is not a simple upgrade of IPv4 or IPv6. Its default address space is 10256. The huge address can meet the needs of human activities for about 750 years.