The Secretary of Information and Technology (TI), Zarrar Hasham, said Thursday that the restoration of damaged underwater internet cables can take four to five weeks.
During a meeting of the Permanent Committee of Information Technology and Telecommunications of the National Assembly today while responding to a consultation raised by the Sadiq Memon member about the slow Internet and interruptions, the secretary of IT replied that multiple cables had been cut on the Coast of Yemen, affecting Internet services.
“Not only one or two cables have been cut, but between four and five,” Hasham told the meeting at the IT park in Islamabad. “The problem is serious taking into account the situation in Yemen. Two cables that arrive in Pakistan have been affected.”
The secretary added that the bandwidth had moved to alternative networks.
“Cable repair can take four to five weeks,” he said, added that special boats would be required to perform repairs.
Memon commented that it is said that three new cables are approaching. ”
“If three new cables come, why are there still internet problems?” Added.
IT secretary responded affirmative.
“Three more cables will arrive in the next 12 to 18 months, which will provide connectivity to Pakistan from Europe,” said Hasham.
“Agreements have been made to bring these three cables to Pakistan.”
This is not the first time that the damage to the submarine cables of the Internet has affected the services in Pakistan.
Earlier this month, Pakistan Telecommunications Limited (PTCL) announced that the cuts to the Internet submarine cables in Saudi waters can affect Internet services in the country during peak hours, and added that the damage affected the partial bandwidth networks (partial bandwidth networks (Asia-Middle-Middle-West-West Asia and IMEWE networks) (India-Middle East-Western Europe).
Internet users throughout Pakistan complained of slow Internet and hindered access to services throughout 2024. On January 3 of this year, PTCL said the teams were “diligently” working to solve the issue of interruptions facing users after a failure in the AAE-1 submarine cable that connected to Pakistan decreased the speed of the network in the country.
On January 16, PTCL announced that Internet services were “now completely operational” after the complete restoration of the Asia-Africa-Europe-1 submarine cable (AAE-1).
