China Telecom Shanghai has denied claims that the slow Internet connection is part of a business ploy to drive customers to sign up to premium services, the Shanghai Daily reported.
The telecom giant explained that the slow connection was simply due to large number of users and the limited Internet resources, reacting to frustrations vented by users trying to connect to overseas sites, such as Amazon and Apple's App Store.
A China Telecom Shanghai official said that work is in progress to upgrade its international connections.
A test by Shanghai Television showed that it took more than 10 minutes for a China Telecom account holder to open the home page of the Microsoft website, while an account holder with rival China Mobile network on the same computer took only a few seconds to open the page.
An Internet speed test by the TV station also found that China Telecom Shanghai connection has a speed of as low as 1 kilobit per second.
The report also showed that it is almost impossible to access foreign websites during the evening, when Internet use is at its peak time.
Some users, however, claimed it is part of China Telecom's marketing ploy to get people to sign up to a more expensive package.
China Telecom has only recently offered its International Elite Network package, with a charge of 200 yuan ($32) a month to provide faster Internet access to overseas websites.
Although the International Elite Network has been stopped, another package, the oddly named Nitrogen Cylinder, is now being promoted, where Web users are offered faster access to overseas sites for 2 yuan per three hours.
China Telecom Shanghai, however, insisted that the problem is mainly due to the pressure of numbers on its servers and that it is working to solve this.
"We are upgrading the capacity of our international network servers, and the work will be done by the middle of September," Xu Zhenyu, general manager of China Telecom Shanghai Internet operations department, said.
"Until then, users will have to put up with some congestion when visiting overseas sites," Xu added.