The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said on Thursday that work was underway to repair a fault in an undersea Internet cable, adding that users could experience disruptions as a result.
The Africa-Asia-Europe (AAE)-1 cable, which began operations in 2017, connects Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Pakistan, India, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Italy and France .
However, cable failures caused Internet users in Pakistan to experience frequent slowdowns and outages in 2024. While companies and Internet providers alleged that the government’s attempts to monitor Internet traffic were responsible, the PTA issued a statement in August attributing the slowdown to a glitch. submarine cable.
In a statement issued today, the PTA said a fault was detected in the AAE-1 cable near Qatar, noting that the cable was one of the seven international submarine cables connecting Pakistan for international internet traffic.
“This may impact internet and broadband user experience across Pakistan,” the statement said about the outage.
“The teams concerned are working to fix the bug,” the statement added. “The PTA is monitoring the situation and will continue to update telecom users accordingly.”
Pakistan has some of the slowest internet in the world despite an improvement in average fixed and mobile broadband speeds in October, according to global speed test data.
Ookla’s Speedtest global index for October showed that for fixed broadband (cable connections to your homes or offices), Pakistan ranked 141st out of 158 countries with an average speed of 15.6 mbps.
In terms of mobile data, the country ranked 100th out of 111 countries with an average speed of 20.61mbps.
Over the past few months, users across Pakistan have been experiencing slow speeds, difficulties downloading media on WhatsApp, and intermittent connectivity issues.
Frequent internet outages were added to limited access to virtual private networks used by many Pakistanis to access X, among other restricted websites. Since July, the country has improved its ranking in fixed broadband speed from 145 to 141 and in mobile data from 101 to 100.
The government had tacitly acknowledged last month in the National Assembly that it was behind the continued internet outages and monitoring of social media platforms, citing prevailing security concerns.
