Nationwide internet services expected to remain slow until cable repairs completed by October: PTA – Pakistan

Internet services across the country are expected to remain slow till “early October” as the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said on Wednesday that the submarine cable responsible for the disruptions would likely be repaired by then.

Internet speeds have witnes­sed a considerable decline over the past few weeks, and users are facing difficulties in sending or down­loading media and voice notes through WhatsApp when connected to mobile data, and experiencing slow browsing speeds, even on broadband.

The business community and internet service providers (ISPs) had alleged that the government’s efforts to monitor internet traffic — including a so-called ‘firewall’ — had caused the slowdown of digital services, resulting in economic losses.

While the country’s information techno­logy minister, Shaza Fatima Khawaja, had confirmed that the government was upgrading its “web management system” to cope with cyber security threats, she has categorically denied rep­orts of the government “throttling” the internet.

The PTA, on the other hand, had last week blamed the internet slowdown on a faulty submarine cable, while dismissing fears that the state was installing a firewall.

In a statement issued today, the PTA said the cyber slowdown was due to two submarine cables, one of which was yet to be repaired.

“The ongoing internet slowdown across the country is mainly due to [a] fault in two (SMW4, AAE-1) of the seven international submarine cables connecting Pakistan internationally.

“It is updated that [the] fault in SMW-4 submarine cable is likely to be repaired by early October 2024,” the telecom authority said.

“Submarine cable AAE-1 has been repaired which may improve internet experience,” the PTA highlighted.

A week ago, PTA Chairman Hafeezur Rehman, a retired major general, had said the damaged submarine cable would be repaired by August 27.

The PTA chief had made the claim before a National Assembly panel, where he faced tough questions from both the government and the opposition lawmakers.

Reasons for cyber slowdown

In its response to the LHC, the PTA also cited three other reasons for the outages — a damaged submarine cable, a misconfiguration in an ISP’s system, and possible cyber-attacks on August 15.

On the other hand, the government has also blamed the widespread use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which have seen increased usage due to the prolonged ban on social media platform X.

Amnesty International has called on Pakistani authorities to provide greater transparency on the nationwide internet slowdown and the use of monitoring and surveillance technologies.