Internet providers working to improve services

Four outages in the past week force companies to enhance capacity.

KARACHI:

Internet services in Pakistan have been chaotic in the past one week with operators struggling with congestion on the network due to a sudden drop in backend capacities available to them.

Internet service providers encountered problems as there were outright blackouts at least four times in the past seven days because of a problem in the major submarine cable system – Southeast Asia, Middle East and Western Europe-4 (SEMEWE4) – which is the main communications artery for westbound data and voice traffic going out of Pakistan.

Owing to this, internet connectivity offered by two submarine cable system providers – Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) with ITI and Transworld Associates Private Limited (TWA) with TW-1 – were severely affected for a short time in each of the incidences.

“Cable cuts occurred in Egypt in a narrow terrestrial corridor known in the communications world as the Egyptian crossing,” said Transworld’s Commercial Director Zulfiqar Qazilbash. The outages usually occur when cables are damaged as a result of fishing trawlers dropping anchors and nets.

The first outage occurred on March 17 from 1:57am to 11:13am, the second outage on March 20 from 4:29pm to 12:46am, the third on March 23 from 8:57pm to 10:40pm and the fourth on March 24 from 4:24pm to 4:56pm.

However, both TWA and PTCL were successfully able to prevent a prolonged outage by shifting customers to alternative routes and cable systems, but since SEMEWE4 is a major artery and a choke point, some congestion and service degradation problems were unavoidable for both companies.

“Cable cuts are a way of life and we have adequate processes to deal with such emergencies to avoid outsourcing companies losing revenue generated through calls and in the longer run, a negative reputation of Pakistan,” said Qazilbash.

Qazilbash informed that service degradation was also a problem, since it affected quality, but added it was much better than total outages which were avoided.

“The quality of international connectivity available to Pakistan’s internet service providers (ISPs) has improved significantly over the last few years,” he said. He explained that the primary reason for improved quality was the growth in the telecom sector over the last decade and increased consumption of bandwidth by the telecom and broadband operators and large governmental and corporate entities.

Another major reason for this quality of service is healthy competition, following privatisation of PTCL and issuance of a licence to Orascom Telecom to set up TWA and provide service to the telecom industry, said analysts.

According to Qazilbash, the cable system TW1 connects Pakistan to almost every major cable that spans the globe and has dramatically improved the communication landscape, which till a few years ago, was solely serviced by a government’s company.

As a result of this healthy competition, both vendors have, over the years, made significant improvements in their networks, including establishment of service level agreements (SLA) with customers, guaranteeing international quality and restoration in case of adversity, such as cable cuts.

PTCL has introduced a new cable system, the IMEWE, to alleviate problems. However, this does not mean that TWA is dependent on the existing infrastructure. TWA connects TW1 to multiple international cables, including IMEWE, and has purchased capacity on alternate cables and routes to avoid complete outages.

It is highly likely that the infrastructure will be improved further so companies are better equipped to deal with such situations. It is expected that newer cables will also be laid to take the pressure off the main choke point.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2011.