ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Minister for IT and Telecom Syed Aminul Haque has said more internet outages could be expected in the country in the near future due to heavy rains and floods that were damaging fibre-optic cables.
Pakistan faced hours-long outages at least twice in the last two weeks, the telecom regulator has said, as the country struggles to cope with heavy rains and flash floods that have killed over 900 people so far.
Pakistan, a country of about 220 million people, has a large and growing internet user base. The PTA says there are 116 million users of 3G and 4G services and 119 million broadband subscribers.
Minister Haque told Dawn the internet outages situation was "serious" and more such incidents could be expected in the near future.
“Due to extensive flooding, most of the pathways of underground cables have been submerged, as relief workers or locals were trying to divert flood water by digging trenches on roads and footpaths,” he said.
“The ministry has directed Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd. to declare an emergency so that repair work could be initiated when any such incident is reported in the system, while the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority is constantly monitoring the quality of service.”
A technical report submitted by PTCL to the Ministry of IT on Wednesday and widely cited by local media said repeated internet outages were mainly because of flood relief efforts in Sindh’s Sukkur division where fibre-optic cables had been damaged by heavy machinery being used to clear flood water.
The PTA said multiple cuts in fibre-optic cables were not due to sabotage or criminal activity but because rescue and relief workers were digging trenches at various places to divert or drain out floodwater.
The PTCL report said the last disruptions in internet service, reported on Aug 22 and 23, were due to multiple cuts in Ghotki, Khairpur and Sukkur districts. The most serious damage was reported in Tehsil Ranipur of Khairpur district.
The total internet usage in Pakistan was around six terabytes, mainly supplied through seven submarine internet cable systems, of which four are operated by PTCL, two by Transworld Associates and a new cable system that recently came online and is owned by a Chinese company. Almost 80 percent of this internet traffic comes through the more than 50,000km widespread PTCL network.
