The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has said that a fault has been reported in the submarine cable AAE-1 near Qatar (one of the seven international undersea cables connecting Pakistan for international internet traffic).
According to a news release, this may impact internet and broadband user experience across Pakistan.
The teams concerned are working to fix the fault. PTA is monitoring the situation and will keep updating telecom users accordingly.
The Africa-Asia-Europe (AAE)-1 cable, which began operations in 2017, connects Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Pakistan, India, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Italy and France.
However, faults with the cable caused internet users in Pakistan to experience frequent slowdowns and disruptions in 2024. While businesses 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 faulty submarine cable.
Pakistan has one of the slowest internet in the world despite improvement in average mobile and fixed broadband speeds in October, according to global speed test data.
On Wednesday. members of the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology raised concerns about the practice of shutting down internet services, particularly after receiving directives from the interior ministry.
However, the PTA chairman responded that such shutdowns had been a recurring issue since 2016 but were recently deemed unlawful, and added that the interior ministry must provide final legal opinions on the matter.
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