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Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom
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Separate language-based Internet root server systems have the potential to split the Internet. It
can lead to fragmentation of the global unified Internet. Such a split - some people call it the
“Balkanization of the Internet” - would not end the Internet as we know it but would lead to new
complications and challenges for coordination. To maintain the standard of universal
communication, bridges would need to be built between different language-based networks, with
very complex cooperation mechanisms.
From an economic and technical viewpoint, such fragmentation would be very counter-productive.
There would be disintegration of the unique value of the Internet, with its current 1.3 billion users
who can all communicate with each other anywhere, any time. Changing root server systems
when moving from one language to another would create additional technical problems and lead
to inefficient time-consuming and costly bureaucratic procedures.
Separate roots could lead also to more control opportunities over the communication flow within a
specific language root, particularly if all root servers of such a network are on the territory of a
single country. Bridges between language-based networks could be designed as gateways that
could be passed only with special governmental permission. That could backfire against the social
and economic needs of a society and lead to isolation and backwardness.
To avoid such a trend toward fragmentation, ICANN has speeded up its procedures and started in
2007 a so-called “fast track” for introduction of iDN.iDN on the country code top level for 11 non-
ASCII language scripts, including complex and simplified Chinese. 45 ICANN Chairman Peter
Dengath Trush, on a visit to Beijing in February 2008, gave assurances that the fast track would
be really fast.
Part of this project is to offer China the possibility of a .cn top-level domain with Chinese
characters in the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority data base and in the legacy root server
system. China has welcomed ICANN's fast track proposal since there is a strong economic
incentive to remain within the global legacy root. But it remains to be seen how potential
contradictions between China's economic interests and its political interests are worked out and
how the use of Chinese characters in the top-level domain zone files will finally make its way into
the legacy root server system coordinated by ICANN.
At an ICANN meeting in Los Angeles in October 2007, another problem appeared when
representatives of China's Network Information Center challenged use of both traditional and
modernized Chinese on an equal basis in ICANN’s test phase. On the mainland, modernized
Chinese dominates and in Taiwan traditional Chinese script is more popular.
IPv6 addresses
The issue of the new addressing system - IPv6 - is of similar complexity. It is expected that the old
version of the Internet protocol - IPv4 - will reach its limits and be saturated in 2012. ICANN has
dealt with the Internet protocol issue for several years through its Address Supporting
Organization, in close cooperation with the Regional Internet
Registries and the Number Resource Organization
China has its own National Internet Registry. Chinese Internet service providers can get Internet
protocol addresses both from the National Internet Registry and the Asian-Pacific Regional
Internet Registry. Chinese officials argue that they do not have enough IPv4 address blocks. But
transition to IPv6, which offers a rather unlimited number of addresses, also creates a number of
technical and political problems, still being discussed.