Beijing Netcom, China Netcom's subsidiary, has suspended its new policy of cutting off Internet connections that have been in use for 48 consecutive hours, a company spokesperson said today.

"We stopped applying this policy on July 15, and haven't received any notice saying when or whether the policy would be effective again," a Beijing Netcom customer service representative said.

One week ago, the carrier launched the new policy intended to avoid prolonged use of broadband, with the intention of averting unintended fees for customers and to prevent theft of Internet user accounts.

The policy affected Beijing Netcom's broadband users, including those who hold yearly, monthly or hourly contracts, a customer service representative previously told Interfax. Enterprises that use Beijing Netcom's Internet services were cut off after a week of continuous use.

The kind of situation the new policy intended to prevent is, for example, monthly-contract subscribers being charged unwanted fees, the representative said. Monthly-contract subscribers are limited to a certain number of hours of use. For extra hours, they pay RMB 0.05 ($0.007) per hour, the representative explained.

However, when Beijing Netcom launched the policy, several subscribers voiced objections. They complained that the new policy caused inconvenience to day-to-day use of the Internet, Chinese newspaper Beijing Business Today reported.

According to the report, in the future, the carrier plans to further
take heed of comments and suggestions of users before the introduction
of new policies.