LINXcast: New IP, China’s Project to Make New Internet Standards

OXFORD INFORMATION LABS

New IP, China’s project to make new Internet standards: you must ask the right questions – a presentation by Emily Taylor

In this episode, LINXcast host, Jez Orbell, introduces Emily Taylor of Oxford Information Labs who recently took part in LINX’s Distinguished Industry Speaker Series. Her talk, New IP, China’s project to make new Internet standards: you must ask the right questions, generated considerable interest.

When news broke that China was seeking to standardise a replacement for TCP/IP through the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the response from the engineering community in the West was derisive. But are we asking the right questions? History shows that in standards wars, the best technology does not always win. To understand China’s strategy, we need to ask different questions, like how would these proposals assist national strategies in China? Why is the choice of venue, the ITU, significant for internet governance and trade reasons? Might we end up with a splinternet, even if we don’t need one?

There are some great background papers available for those who want to read more about this topic. In particular of course, the article by Stacie Hoffmann, Dominique Lazanski & Emily Taylor herself:

• Standardising the splinternet: how China’s technical standards could fragment the internet

More material on this topic from the RIPE NCC, the Internet Society, and ICANN can be found below.

• Do We Need a New IP? (RIPE NCC)
• Discussion Paper: An analysis of the “New IP” proposal to the ITU-T (ISOC)
• New IP (ICANN)

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