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With thanks to Anil Madhavapeddy and Carlos Molina-Jimenez for their assistance and Dan Svantesson and Graham Smith for their comments. This paper was written for, and takes into account feedback from, the Microsoft Cloud Computing Research Centre (MCCRC) Symposium, September 2014: "A Cloud for Europe? Feasibility and Implications of Internet Regionalisation." Both the research presented in this paper, and the symposium at which it was discussed, were made possible as a result of generous support from Microsoft. The views presented herein are, however, the authors' alone. 2 On key technical aspects, see

The main purpose of this note is to clarify the current interpretation of the 32-bit IP version 4 address space, whose significance has changed substantially since it was originally defined. A short section on IPv6 addresses mentions the main points of similarity with, and difference from, IPv4.

The mobile communication system has transformed to be the fundamental infrastructure to support digital demands from all industry sectors, and 6G is envisioned to go far beyond the communication-only purpose. There is coming to a consensus that 6G will treat Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the cornerstone and has a potential capability to provide "intelligence inclusion", which implies to enable the access of AI services at anytime and anywhere by anyone. Apparently, the intelligent inclusion vision produces far-reaching influence on the corresponding network architecture design in 6G and deserves a clean-slate rethink. In this article, we propose an end-to-end system architecture design scope for 6G, and talk about the necessity to incorporate an independent data plane and a novel intelligent plane with particular emphasis on end-to-end AI workflow orchestration, management and operation. We also highlight the advantages to provision converged connectivity and computing services at the network function plane. Benefiting from these approaches, we believe that 6G will turn to an "everything as a service" (XaaS) platform with significantly enhanced business merits.

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