ISLAMABAD:
Pakistan Telecommunications Limited (PTCL) said on Thursday that additional bandwidth has been put in place to address slow internet speeds in Pakistan following an outage in the Asia-Africa-Europe-1 (AAE-1) network. 1), one of the seven international maritime networks. cables connecting Pakistan.
However, media reports said PTCL did not provide a specific timeline for repairing the defect. Reports indicate that PTCL and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority were working diligently to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, although it could take a few days.
The PTA revealed last week that internet and broadband users could experience disruption due to the development of a fault on the AAE-1 submarine cable near Qatar. The PTCL said meta-related services – WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram – could be slowed down during peak hours.
After the outage, Minister of State for Information Technology (IT), Shaza Fatima Khawaja, had said efforts were underway to reroute another 200 gigabytes per second soon. It also said that 630 gigabytes per second of the affected traffic had already been transferred to an alternative route.
Pakistan has been struggling with slow internet since last year, with the government constantly blaming faults in undersea cables. The Internet slowdown has been particularly hard on freelancers, who number more than two million and play an important role in the country’s economic growth.
Despite these problems, Pakistan’s telecommunications sector is progressing, with the government taking steps to improve the telecommunications and IT sectors. The PTA mentioned the launch of the 2Africa cable project to address the bandwidth problem in the country.
The 2Africa project, 45,000 kilometers long, is the world’s largest submarine cable network that circles the African coast to interconnect Europe and the Middle East. It includes 46 landing stations in 33 countries, including Pakistan.
The landing location for the 2Africa Cable project in Pakistan would be Hawkes Bay in Keamari Town of Karachi, with Trans World Associates as the local operators. 2Africa passes from Europe via the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean, then returns to Europe via the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.
According to the data, Pakistan’s telecom revenue reached Rs 955 billion between 2023 and 2024. In the country, cellular telecom services are available to 91% of the population, while 81% of the population enjoys 4G service .
Data indicates that the number of mobile phone users increased by 29% and access to the Internet in homes by 20%. Additionally, Pakistan has also joined 37 countries worldwide that have established national public infrastructure audited by WebTrust.
(WITH ADDITIONAL INPUT FROM THE PRESS OFFICE)
