无线网络开始变得无处不在，无论是在大范围还是小范围内。本文作者David Chisnall试图完善Arthur C. Clarke的预言：这些科技正在走向何方。

　　January 1, 2000—a historic day. Telecom companies around the world would simultaneously abolish long-distance calling charges, making every call a local call. At least, according to Arthur C. Clarke, writing around a decade earlier.

　　2000年1月1日是一个历史性时刻。世界上的电信公司将同时废除长途通讯费用，使得每通电话都变成本地通话。至少，Arthur C. Clarke在十年前是这么写的。

　　In the real world, this didn"t happen. Telephone companies still charge different amounts based on your distance from the other endpoint of a call. It wasn"t exactly unlike Sir Arthur"s prediction, however. International calls I"ve made in the past few years have cost me absolutely nothing beyond the fixed network connection rate I pay for a broadband connection. But their endpoints have been other devices connected to the Internet, rather than the old telephone network. In practice, most of the cable between the two endpoints will be the same, irrespective of which logical network places the call.

　　在现实世界里，这并没有发生。电信公司依然按照通话中对方的距离远近收取不同的费用。但是，也不是完全和Arthur爵士所预言的不同。我在过去几年中所拨打的国际长途几乎没有花费多少，除了固定的宽带使用费。但是对方通常是连接在网上的其他设备，而不是老式的电话网络。在实际中，大多数的情况下连接通话两端的线缆都是相同的，不管使用什么网络来拨打。

　　The All-IP Network

　　ALL-IP网络

　　The wired infrastructure in the UK (operated by BT) and the next-generation wireless telephone networks all have one thing in common: They use IP internally and run telephone calls as Voice over IP (VoIP). My current phone supports UMTS, and is assigned a 10/8 IP address whenever I use it. This means that it"s behind a Network Address Translation (NAT) and therefore cannot receive inbound connections.

　　英国的有线网络（由英国电信运营）和下一代的无线电话网络都有一个共同点：他们使用内部IP地址，使用VoIP技术通话。我现在使用的电话支持UMTS模式，当我使用它的时候会被分配一个10/8网络地址。这意味着它无法通过网络地址转换（NAT），因此不能接收呼入服务。

　　The 10/8 subnet is the largest private allocation. As a /8, it has 2^24—a little under 17 million—unique addresses. This isn"t a very large number in comparison to the number of devices connected to the mobile phone network, which is why mobile operators are likely to be among the first major deployments of IPv6. With v6, a company (or even an individual) can easily get a /64, meaning that the first 64 bits identify the network and the last 64 bits identify the device. To put this into perspective, the company has enough address space for every valid IPv4 address to be a network the size of the Internet, or for every person to have three billion devices on his or her network. More to the point, it allows every device to have its own IP address, and the routing tables to be sufficiently sparse that routing is cheap.

　　10/8子网是最大的私有网络。a/8意味着拥有2的24次方 -- 接近1700万 -- 的唯一地址。与连接在移动电话网络上的设备相比，这并不是一个足够的数目。这也是为什么移动运营商总是想要率先部署IPv6的原因。使用v6协议，一间公司（甚至是个人）可以轻易获得 a/64的地址，意味着开头64位用来定义网络，最后64位用来定义设备。具体地说，足以使得公司的每一个的IPv4地址都可以拥有像现在整个互联网那么多的地址空间，或者每一个人在他或她的网络上都可以配备30亿台设备。更为重要的是，它允许每个设备拥有独立的IP地址，允许路由表变得十分稀疏。

　　One other advantage that IPv6 adds, of particular relevance in this arena, is Mobile IPv6, in which a device can change its location in the network and still be routable, without dropping existing connections. Moving between towers is generally handled lower down the protocol stack, but this new arrangement allows a phone to move between currently-separate networks while still maintaining connections, as long as both endpoints have IPv6 connectivity.

　　使用IPv6的另一个好处，和这个行业密切相关的，是移动电话IPv6，使得一个设备可以在网络里改变它的位置而仍然能被找到，而不用断开当前的连接。在信号塔之间移动一般由底层协议栈处理，但是新的协议允许一部电话在当前不同的网络间移动而仍然保持连接，只要两个终端都是用IPv6连接。

　　An all-IP network emphasizes the distinction between selling access and selling services—a distinction that mobile phone companies currently try to blur. When you make a telephone call, you"re using their network, and you"re also making use of the peer agreements they have with other phone networks, while enjoying the use of their routing system.

　　all-IP网络着重强调了出售许可和出售服务之间的分别 -- 一个移动电话公司试图模糊化的分别。当你打电话时，你在使用它们的网络，你也同样在利用它们和其他电话网络的之间的协议，当你使用他们的路由选择系统的时候。

　　Mapping from telephone numbers is much less important than it used to be. I used to make telephone calls by a complicated process. First, I would look up a number in a paper directory or a local cache—either a personal address book or my brain—and then enter this number on a dial (later, on a keypad). By contrast, now I just select the person"s name from my address book and press "call." A recent study claimed that peoples" memories are getting worse because they can"t remember their friends" phone numbers. For me, it"s not just that I don"t remember my friends" numbers anymore—I never knew them. In many cases, a friend sent me a vCard via email or Bluetooth, and I never looked at the number field in the first place. Already, the idea of calling a phone (rather than a person) seems faintly archaic.

　　电话号码映射将没有以前那么重要。我过去使用非常复杂的方式来打电话。首先，我要在纸质电话本或者本地缓存里查找电话号码 -- 个人电话本或者我的大脑 -- 然后输入号码打电话。与之相反，现在我只要从我的电话本里选择名字，然后按下拨号键。最近的一项研究表明人类的记忆正在变糟，因为他们不能记住朋友的电话号码。对我而言，并不是我不再能记住我朋友的电话号码 -- 我从来就不知道。在很多情况下，一个朋友通过电邮或者蓝牙给我发送电子名片（vCard），我从来不需要查看号码栏。拨号码打电话（而不是通过人名）的方式看上去已经有点过时了。