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A fault with Time Warner Cable's network left millions of people cut off from the internet in the US.

The firm said the problem affected customers in all 29 of the states in which it offered broadband connections.

The problem started in the early hours of Wednesday morning, which will have limited its effect.

The company said that most, but not all, of its 11.4 million internet subscribers were back online within four hours of the problem's start.

"Unfortunately, I do not have an estimate time of repair," responded to one user who asked when his home connection would be restored.

"During an overnight network maintenance activity in which we were managing IP [internet protocol] addresses, an erroneous configuration was propagated throughout our national backbone, resulting in a network outage," explained a company spokesman.

"We immediately identified and corrected the root cause of the issue and restored service by 07.30 ET.

"We apologise for any inconvenience this caused our customers. A failure of this size is very serious and we are taking the necessary steps to improve our processes with the objective of making sure this doesn't happen again."

Time Warner Cable is in the process of being acquired by Comcast, another US internet service provider.

In a separate development, TWC has been ordered to pay a fine following earlier problems with its network.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had failed to report the disruptions in a timely manner.

As part of a settlement, TWC has agreed to pay a $1.1m (£660,000) penalty and implement a three-year compliance plan.