Pakistan Telecommunications Limited (PTCL) announced on Thursday that Internet services are “now fully operational” after the complete restoration of the Asia-Africa-Europe-1 (AAE-1) undersea Internet cable.
AAE-1 is a 25,000 kilometer cable that connects Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand with Malaysia and Singapore, and then continues to Myanmar, India, Pakistan, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Yemen, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Greece. , Italy and France, according to their website.
Internet users across Pakistan complained of slow Internet and hampered access to services throughout 2024. On January 3, PTCL said teams were working “diligently” to resolve the issue of outages faced by users. after a failure in the AAE-1 submarine Internet cable connecting Pakistan. slowed down the speed of the network in the country.
A day later, IT Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja said around 80 percent of the bandwidth shortfall caused by the outage had been recovered as traffic had been diverted to two other cables. Last week, PTCL had said dawn.com that there was no exact timeline for resolution of slow Internet connectivity or cable repair.
However, a statement issued today by PTCL spokesperson on the “complete restoration” of the cable said: “PTCL resolves Internet slowdown caused by AAE-1 submarine cable outage in record time. Internet services are now fully operational and browsing is smooth.”
It said the extra bandwidth it had added had ensured “minimal disruption” during the issue and that services on the Meta platforms (WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram) were also “fully functional with a seamless experience”.
“Teams from Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and PTCL worked tirelessly to restore full connectivity. “PTCL thanks customers for their patience and understanding during the restoration process,” the statement concluded.
