Citizens may have to brave slow internet for another month

ISLAMABAD: Fixing the nationwide internet slowdown may take another month, as the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said on Wednesday that one of the two faulty submarine cables blamed for the disruption is likely to be repaired by early October.
However, the telecom regulator also insisted that the repair of another cable “may improve internet experience”.
In a statement, the PTA said that the ongoing internet slowdown across the country was mainly due to faults in two (SMW-4 and AAE-1) of the seven international submarine cables connecting Pakistan internationally. “It is updated that fault in SMW-4 submarine cable is likely to be repaired by early October 2024, whereas submarine cable AAE-1 has been repaired, which may improve internet experience,” it added.
The statement came almost a week after PTA Chairman Hafeezur Rehman attributed the nationwide internet slowdown to faulty submarine cables and said the issue would be fixed by Aug 28.
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.
Citizens, businesses and internet service providers (ISPs) have alleged that the government’s efforts to monitor internet traffic — including a firewall — have caused the slowdown of digital services.
Meanwhile, the operators of the two cables — PTCL and Transworld — have denied any disruptions in their traffic.
PTCL operates four undersea internet cables connecting Pakistan, including the Southeast Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4 or SMW-4), an around 18,800km submarine cable connecting several countries, including Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, UAE and Saudi Arabia.
A senior company official said that a fault had developed in the SMW-4 cable system two months ago, but the load was shifted to the other three cable networks within 36 hours. “There is no internet glitch in the PTCL system and all the cables are functioning at their required capacity,” the official said.
Similarly, a senior executive of Transworld, which operates the AAE-1 (Asia-Africa-Europe 1) cable in Pakistan, was unaware of the PTA’s statement and denied that any slowdown was caused by disruptions in the cable. AAE-1 is a 25,000km submarine communications cable system from Southeast Asia to Europe.
“There is a fault in the AAE-1 cable, but that is in the Oman area, and it would only impact that region if the load is not shifted to other cables. Currently, there is no hindrance to internet cable systems in Pakistan,” the Transworld executive explained.
Transworld operates two cable systems in the country, AAE-1 and SMW-5, while the recent addition to the sector is the PEACE (Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe) Cable, operated by a third company.
A day after the PTA chief blamed a nationwide internet slowdown on a faulty submarine cable, denying the existence of a firewall, the PTA issued a statement on Thursday (Aug 22), attributing the ongoing internet slowdown to a fault in the two submarine cables.
“The AAE-1 cable has experienced a 250G outage due to rerouting between Iran and Qatar. Similarly, the SMW-4 cable (1.5T) has been out of service due to faults near Karachi. Operators are rerouting traffic on other available cables to minimise the impact on internet users in Pakistan,” the PTA said at the time.
That statement came three days after a news conference by Minister of State for IT and Telecom Shaza Fatima Khawaja on Sunday (Aug 18), where she attributed the recent internet slowdown to excessive usage of virtual private networks (VPNs).
Ms Khawaja clarified that rumours circulating about the government installing firewalls at internet termination points to monitor content were unfounded. She claimed that the internet was neither blocked nor intentionally slowed down, but the increased use of VPNs had affected internet speed as certain apps were blocked, leading users to turn to VPNs, which bypass local internet services and slow down the internet.
Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2024