With the major underwater cable connecting China with North America repaired, Internet users will see that things are back to normal, sources with China Telecom, the country's largest telecom operator, told Xinhua on Tuesday.

    Netizens have seen improved Internet access, saying sites they couldn't log onto for a month are accessible again, but some foreign websites are still slow.

    Many Internet users wondered whether the Internet operators would have the decency to give them a rebate. An anonymous writer on Thatsbj.com bulletin said that telecom operators should have reduced their charges until the net was working again at full capacity.

    China Telecom responded that it was not the company's fault but a natural disaster and there was no regulation requiring compensation or lower charges.

    A 100-percent recovery is still two weeks away when all cables will have been fixed, including the Hong Kong-Taiwan section of the FNAL, the APCN2 linking China, Japan, Malaysia, the ROK and Singapore and the SMW3 connecting China with Europe.

    Communications on these cables have been rerouted via alternative systems or landline cables meaning slower website access, China Telecom said.

    Bad weather conditions and technological problems delayed the repair work that China Netcom predicted would finish at the end of January. The company said the cost will be huge as each cable break costs about 700,000-800,000 U.S. dollars to repair.

    A quake on Dec. 26 measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale off the southern tip of Taiwan damaged all nine fiber-optic cables that cross the ocean floor south of Taiwan, affecting telecommunication traffic between the mainland and Taiwan, Hong Kong, the United States, Southeast Asia and Europe.