New undersea cable to boost Pakistan's internet speed

Pakistan is set to benefit from a significant upgrade to its internet infrastructure with the installation of a new undersea cable connecting the country to Africa.

The 45,000-kilometre cable, part of the 2Africa Pearls project, is expected to enhance Pakistan's internet speeds and reliability once it goes live in the coming days.

The cable, which boasts a capacity of 180 terabits per second, is part of a broader effort to improve connectivity between Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.

Pakistan is one of 33 countries involved in the 2Africa project, which includes 46 landing stations across the globe.

The cable is expected to double the country’s digital bandwidth, providing much-needed relief to users struggling with slow internet speeds, Express News reported.

The new cable is set to address Pakistan's persistent internet speed issues, particularly affecting platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

Currently, the country relies on around 8 terabytes of bandwidth from existing cables, which has not been sufficient to meet growing demand for fast internet. With the additional 24 terabytes of bandwidth from the new cable, users can expect smoother online experiences, especially for social media apps.

In recent months, slow internet speeds and frequent outages have led to frustrations among Pakistan's internet users, particularly affecting the freelancing community.

The increased reliance on Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to bypass content restrictions has also contributed to slower speeds, according to the government.

Pakistan's digital capacity is expected to nearly double next year with the addition of four more major internet lines, including those for 5G services.

Recently, Minister of State for Information Technology, Shaza Fatima, acknowledged that the country's internet speed does not meet international standards.

The issue of slow internet speeds was also raised in the National Assembly, where the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), a coalition partner, expressed strong discontent.

Member of Parliament Shazia Marri criticised the government's Digital Nation Bill highlighting the contradiction between claims about digital development and the reality of inadequate internet speeds.

Although Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has been buttressing the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's (PML-N) government in the centre, it finds the latter's policies shorn of a vision to tackle the menacing problems of climate change and granting digital rights to the citizens.

Bilawal critiques govt over digital rights

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, while addressing the Sindh University's Convocation in Jamshoro on Monday, fired a broadside against the government, urging the youth to throw their weight behind him for securing their digital rights.

"They [the rulers] are afraid that you may end up collectively using the internet [based platforms] and demand your rights," he told the Convocation, after delving to the history lesson, how the rulers over the centuries were trying to control the populace.

"Attempts are under way to control and censor the country's digital landscape," he warned, as he referred to the recent problems like slowing down of the internet speed and blockade of the virtual private networks (VPNs).

The PPP chairman said that the bandwidth, fibre-optic cables and wireless internet services served as the modern-day infrastructure tools, like river, sea, roads, ports, highways, airports and industry emerged in the previous centuries.