Telstra Clear has fixed the broadband connection which affected customers in Wellington and Christchurch this morning, with the company advising TechDay early this afternoon.

The connection loss was supposed to be fixed by 1pm this afternoon, but with no word yet from the telco, it appeared not.

However, company spokesperson Gary Bowering told TechDay the problem wasn't as bad as first feared, and the connections have now been restored.

"Only the small percentage of customers who had their cable modems turned off this morning were without service," Bowering told TechDay.

"Most customers leave their modems on. So while we advised all customers of the issue, far fewer than 80,000 were actually affected.

"The issue was resolved quickly, however we left the service status message online for a reasonable time to ensure that customers had information while modems were re-authenticating

"We apologise for the inconvenience are working with our vendors to determine the root cause."