China launches its own next generation of Internet

China launches its own next generation of Internet

China has taken a major step in becoming the next big player in the Internet Market with their latest release. They launched their first backbone network of the next generation Internet that would help China to catch-up with the market leaders. CERTNET2 as it is called has gone into final operation. This was announced by the eight various departments of the Chinese Government.

Wu Jianping, director of the expert committee of the China Education and Research Network (CERNET) played a major role in this project. He had this to say to the media about their latest achievement: “We were a learner and follower in the development of the first generation Internet, but we have caught up with world’s leaders in the next-generation Internet, become a first mover, and won respect and attention from the international community.”

CERTNET2 now becomes the biggest network running the next generation Internet. It connects 25 universities in 20 cities. Tests on the network reached speeds of 40 gigabits per second, which is a record for real world applications. The average speeds though should hover between 2-10 gigabits for the universities.

The basic difference between CERTNET2 and the other networks is that this is purely based on the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) technology. This is a first and would become a standard for others to follow. It will solve many problems for China. One of which is the shortage of IP addresses the older generation networks are currently suffering from.

China plans to expand this network to around 100 universities soon.