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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