With reference to IPv6, probably most end users might not have any sense of it. The mainstream parlance in the industry is that network carriers and content and service providers stick to their own arguments. Carriers believe owing to the lack of IPv6 content and service, the demand for IPv6 from the users is very small. The content and service providers hold that users cannot have access to content and service through IPv6 and that why they should provide the service in this background.

Dr. Song Linjian of CFIEC stated in the article China, towards fully-connected IPv6 networks that Chicken and Egg paradox between IPv6 networks and content is just temporary and that it surely exists but not the key reason. China has already prepared itself. When the last mile problem is solved, the users will fully explode. Long ago, every telecom carrier started to strictly implement the network device procurement requirements that network devices must support IPv6 such as the IPv6 Ready Logo testing and certificating which can satisfy this requirement. However, the CE (home gateways and wireless routers, etc.) purchased by users themselves mostly do not support IPv6, which caused the last mile problem.

“When IPv6 is still burgeoning, it is hard to require the vendors and users to have the devices with IPv6-enabled and IPv6-certified. The enterprises produce mature CE Routers ?Customer Edge Router, home gateway routers?that support IPv6 do not launch their products to the Chinese market in that customers do not have demand for IPv6. This has become the narrowest bottleneck that hinders the development of IPv6 fixed line users.” said the Director of the BII-SDNCTC Li Zhen with reference to the fixed line IPv6 development.

In the upcoming era of IoT, more and more devices need to be connected, and the home gateway CE routers, as the switch center of home network information and data, needs full support for IPv6. From another perspective, it can also be seen that the home gateways have won enough attention to IPv6. On March 19th 2014, international IPv6 organization IPv6 Forum and IPv6 Ready Logo committee officially announced the initiation of the IPv6 Ready CE Router Logo conformance and interoperability testing and certificating program, which marks the full support from brand-new CE Router certificating program of next generation Ipv6 deployment and commercialization. According to the statistics from IPv6 Forum, at present, there are 3000 network devices that passed the Ipv6 Ready certification. The rate of supporting IPv6 is very high. But when it comes to the home gateway CE devices, the next CE scaling testing program CE Router under the framework of IPv6 Ready Logo, only 17 devices from US Netgear, ZTE, Broadcom, etc. have passed IPv6 Ready Logo certification. As the key to access to the last mile of IPv6 in the households, the Chinese market for routing devices bears great potential. The CE Router certified devices will have stronger competitive edge to take hold of vantage ground in the next generation network deployment and commercialization.

According to the Global IPv6 Testing Center, the devices to be certified by CE Router Logo are the smart home gateways, such as the home routers, wireless routers, GPON&EPON end devices, etc. The testing content covers the core protocols (Phase-2 enhanced certificating), all the tests in DHCPv6 and RFC084. Compared to other certifications (Core, DHCPv6, Ipsecv6, SNMPv6), the certification is highly targeted at devices and much stricter. In the future, more CE routers will be certified by IPv6 and the seamless deployment of home IPv6 will be gradually realized to solve the last mile problem of the access to IPv6 by carriers. This will have far-reaching influence on the transition of the users to IPv6.