BEIJING -- China will update its internet TV network infrastructure to promote the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) based services, authorities announced Sunday.

By the end of the third quarter of 2020, the upgrading of China's internet TV-related networks and critical equipment, as well as all the software and hardware sections of integrated internet TV platforms, will have been completed, according to an official circular.

The move is part of China's measures to implement a national plan to encourage large-scale adoption of IPv6, said the circular jointly issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Radio and Television Administration.

IPv6 is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. It allows much higher theoretical limits on the number of IP addresses than the current IPv4 system.