Don't Worry, Many In China Have No Clue What IPv9 Is Either

from the we're-supporting-what-now? dept

Last week, a variety of stories started appearing suggesting that China was adopting a new internet protocol standard called IPv9. While many in the press just went with the report, just about everyone who knew anything about this were left scratching their heads wondering just what the hell IPv9 was. It wouldn't be the first time China decided to "go it alone" when it came to internet standards. Recently there was a big international and diplomatic stink over China's decision to use their very own, completely incompatible WiFi standard that had many WiFi equipment providers threatening to completely ignore the huge Chinese market out of fear for their intellectual property (which they would need to share with a Chinese "partner" to help them build WAPI-compliant equipment). China is also trying (with questionable success) to go it alone with their own 3G wireless standard, while the rest of the world follows one of two standard upgrade paths. So, when the whole concept of IPv9 started making news, it was easy to assume that perhaps China had done it again. However, now reports are coming out that, even in China, many have no idea about IPv9 and suggest that it's really just a concept being pushed by one research group in China, rather than any real adopted standard at this point.