AS4134

AS4134 is CHINANET-BACKBONE, China Telecom's primary national backbone and mass-market broadband network — the "163" network — and it remains one of the largest actively-announcing eyeball networks on the internet. As observed by RouteViews at the 2026-08-15T02:00:00Z RIB dump, it originates 728 IPv4 prefixes (roughly 110.7 million addresses) and 627 IPv6 prefixes, a single-collector snapshot rather than a global census.

China Telecom Corporation Limited, the network's operator, describes ChinaNet as a Tier-1 network launched in 1995 that reaches "over 507 million" subscribers, per the operator's own published figures — self-reported, not independently audited. The company is majority state-owned: its parent, China Telecommunications Corporation, held 63.78% of shares as of 2022-12-31, and it is dual-listed in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Peering with AS4134 is offered from 14 metros and 23 ChinaNet points of presence with 100GE interfaces, but the operator's own peering page states twice that "BGP requires special approval" — a negotiated, approval-gated process rather than open peering. Upstream transit relationships cannot be determined from routing data alone, since AS-path adjacency shows which networks sit next to each other, not which side is customer or provider.

DDoS-source pattern

Cloudflare's Q1 2025 and Q2 2025 DDoS threat reports named ChinaNet Backbone (AS4134) among the top 10 HTTP-DDoS source ASNs — the only traditional ISP/telecom carrier in an otherwise hosting/cloud-provider list — and Cloudflare attributed roughly 2.8% of its record May 2025 7.3 Tbps attack to China Telecom.

Not a confirmed continuing pattern

AS4134 is not named in Cloudflare's Q4 2025 or H1 2026 DDoS threat reports, so continuation into 2026 is unconfirmed as of an August 2026 search.

Historical route leaks

on 2019-06-06 AS4134 accepted and globally re-announced a 70,000+-route leak from Swiss network Safe Host (AS21217), redirecting major European mobile-carrier traffic through China for over two hours; separately, a misconfiguration intermittently misdirected Verizon Asia-Pacific traffic through China from December 2015 to April 2018.

Remediation

China Telecom announced on 2020-12-10 that AS4134 had achieved MANRS routing-security conformance, including IRR-based route filtering and rejection of RPKI-invalid announcements from EBGP customers; no further AS4134-specific leak or hijack is documented as of an August 2026 search.

Exposure

treat individual addresses as Chinese residential or enterprise broadband — the DDoS-source signal reflects the network's very large size and potential compromised-host population, not necessarily operator intent.

Operator

China Telecom Corporation Limited (majority state-owned; markets its national network as ChinaNet) [Confirmed] — chinatelecom-h.com company overview, ctamericas.com

Country / RIR

China (CN) [Confirmed] — chinatelecom-h.com company overview. Administering registry: Unknown [Unknown]

Allocated

Unknown; registry last-modified date: Unknown [Unknown]

Org status

active; majority state-owned, dual-listed public company (Shanghai Stock Exchange 601728, listed 2021-08-20; Hong Kong Stock Exchange 728, listed 2002-11-15); controlling parent China Telecommunications Corporation held 63.78% of shares as of 2022-12-31 [Confirmed] — chinatelecom-h.com

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED, SOURCED)

recurrently named among Cloudflare's top HTTP-DDoS source ASNs in Q1–Q2 2025 (not in Q4 2025/H1 2026); own routing history includes a 70,000+-route leak re-announced globally on 2019-06-06 and an intermittent 2015–2018 misdirection of Verizon Asia-Pacific traffic; China Telecom announced MANRS conformance for AS4134 on 2020-12-10

Network & routing

Network type

national backbone plus mass-market broadband/eyeball access network ("ChinaNet," the "163" network), launched 1995; described by the operator's own regional subsidiary as "a Tier-1 global network" [Confirmed] — ctamericas.com, chinatelecomasiapacific.com

Size

as observed by RouteViews at the 2026-08-15T02:00:00Z RIB dump, 728 IPv4 prefixes (~110.7M addresses; 110,663,168 exact) and 627 IPv6 prefixes originated — a single-collector snapshot, not a global census [Confirmed] — the RouteViews BGP routing data (CC BY 4.0) AS4134

Routing/peering

174 distinct neighbouring ASNs observed by RouteViews (32-item capped sample: AS174, AS701, AS1299, AS2497, AS2516, AS2914, AS3257, AS3303, AS3356, AS3491, AS4809, AS4811, AS4812, AS4813, AS4816, AS4835, AS4837, AS4847, AS5511, AS6453, AS6461, AS6762, AS6830, AS6939, AS7018, AS9318, AS9389, AS9929, AS11164, AS17633, AS17638, AS17799); none fall in a reserved or documentation ASN range [Confirmed] — the RouteViews BGP routing data (CC BY 4.0) AS4134. Upstreams: Unknown, since AS-path adjacency carries no transit/customer direction [Unknown]. Peering itself requires special BGP approval per the operator, offered from 14 metros / 23 PoPs with 100GE interfaces

[Confirmed] — ctamericas.com/products/internet/chinanet-peering/

RPKI

Unknown — not evaluated for this entry, which is distinct from an absent-ROA finding [Unknown]

Notable usage

per China Telecom's own published (self-reported, not independently audited) figures — ChinaNet reaches "over 507 million" Chinese Internet subscribers; the operator states it "owns 70% of all Chinese Internet resources" and holds "over-50%" of the Chinese broadband market; 400+ domestic access nodes plus 150+ international metro points of presence over 48 submarine/terrestrial cable routes

[Confirmed, self-reported] — chinatelecomasiapacific.com, ctamericas.com

Related ASNs

AS4809 (CN2 / ChinaNet Next Generation Carrier Network), AS23764 (CTGNet), AS36678 — all three named alongside AS4134 in China Telecom's own MANRS-conformance announcement [Confirmed] — prnewswire.com

Analyst note

One of the largest eyeball networks on the internet; its DDoS-source appearances (Cloudflare Q1–Q2 2025) reflect network scale and a large potential compromised-host population rather than operator intent, and its 2015–2019 route-leak history was followed by a 2020 MANRS conformance announcement. Treat individual addresses as Chinese residential/enterprise broadband.