Next Generation Information Networks in China

Qiao GUO, Beijing Institute of Technology, China


In the 21 century, information networks become more and more important in our daily life. In 2003, 30.9% of the mobile phones in China can be connected to Internet.  But in UK, the number is only 9.3, and also in other developed countries, far less mobile phones are equipped with this function in comparison with Oriental countries.  According to statistics, the P2P applications have occupied 72% of the world bandwidth market, whereas the applications of web and E-mail occupy only 9% and 2% respectively.  China's domestic market has the similar situation with P2P steadily increasing as against the conventional model of main servers.  The result is that the most of bandwidth in communication backbone are now consumed by IP business.  The fixed-line bandwidth increases at the rate of 20% whereas the bandwidth of Internet backbone doubles and quadruples.  The Internet applications are now a major share of the market.  Market share of the online recreational activities has surpassed that of several traditional entertainment services.  The increase rates of both Internet bandwidth consumptions and its share of market are much higher than that of the total volume of televisions and that of the income from television programme service.However, there exist some severe problems within the IPv4 network because of security, QoS and the limited number of IPv4 addresses.  In order to solve the problems, the NGI (Next Generation Internet) and NGN  (Next Generation Network) were proposed.  The researches of NGI and NGN are carried out, and deployments of both are made in China and in the world.  Generally speaking, the former far exceeds the latter.  NGN is run generally as a commercial network.  Because of the huge cost and risk it is basically based on the improvement of the traditional telecommunication networks.  NGI is not necessarily the beginning of NGN, and also is not necessarily to develop to be NGN.  If the two can properly merge each other, it would be mutually beneficial.  It might be less difficult to start with NGI.  The problems of heavy traffic and scalability should be addressed first before the integration of multi-services.  NGI should be an important part of NGN.At the front edge of the evolution of Information Network, it can be seen that the further advanced technologies need to be developed.  New opportunities and challenges exist in this critical period of change.  To seize the opportunity, China has launched the CNGI project under the leadership of the eight different national ministries, among which the State Development and Reform Commission takes the lead position. The entry of China into WTO and the ongoing reform mean that the business of Internet and telecommunication network usher in the new era of competitions.  Now China becomes the greatest market for the mobile communication in the world.  Although there is at present 3.5 hundred million users of mobile phones, this figure represents nothing more than 26% of its total population.  The operators from abroad are well aware of potentials in the Chinese market.  At this transitional juncture from IPv4 to IPv6 and from NGI to NGIN when the two generations of technology coexist, China has to follow up the developments lest she should be marginalized again.  Information technology drives industrialization, and it opens up a broad prospect for the sustainable developments of the Chinese information network industry, which has played a historic role in setting up its scope and dimension, in augmenting its competitiveness and finally in transforming China from a big telecommunication country into a strong one.  It will also play the important role in aid of China's socioeconomic development and in building a harmonious society. China already stands at the forefront of the state of the art of information technology.  What we need now is to develop the killer broadband services and applications well adapted to the country, and to engage seriously and cautiously in the research and development of NGIN.

Keywords: Next Generation Internet; Next Generation Network.