Structure
An important characteristic of the Chinese internet is that the access routes to the Internet are owned by the Chinese government, and private enterprises and individuals can only rent the bandwidth from state. The first four major national networks, namely CSTNET, ChinaNet, CERNET and CHINAGBN, are the "backbone" of the mainland China Internet. Later dominant telecom providers also started to provide Internet services. Public Internet services are usually provided by provincial telecom companies, which sometimes are traded between networks. Internet service providers without a nation-wide network such as the Information highway could not compete with their bandwidth provider, the telecom companies, and often run out of business.
The interconnection between these networks is a big concern of Internet users, since Internet traffic via the global Internet is quite slow. However, major Internet services providers are reluctant to aid rivals.
Read more about this topic: Internet In The People's Republic Of China
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“The structure was designed by an old sea captain who believed that the world would end in a flood. He built a home in the traditional shape of the Ark, inverted, with the roof forming the hull of the proposed vessel. The builder expected that the deluge would cause the house to topple and then reverse itself, floating away on its roof until it should land on some new Ararat.”
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“Each structure and institution here was so primitive that you could at once refer it to its source; but our buildings commonly suggest neither their origin nor their purpose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)