China Telecom - one of the largest telecoms in the country - has mapped out a plan for full transition of its network to IPv6 protocol from IPv4, Marbridge Daily reported. The company is currently undertaking commercial trials of the technology and plans a full commercial launch in 2012.

In 2015, China Telecom will begin gradually retreating from IPv4 network and services. The company will continue offering both IPv4 and IPv6 services but will encourage its customers to migrate to the latter.

As part of the project, the telecom giant will upgrade enterprise and residential gateways to support IPv6 access for its customers and aim to accelerate a shift to mobile Internet. It will work on development of M2M applications for IPv6.

IPv6 deployments are on a gradual rise around the world, as the finite number of IPv4 IP addresses is getting close to being exhausted. Reportedly, the largest IPv6 network in the world is operated by Hurricane Electric - a Fremont, Calif., colocation and Internet backbone provider.