The PTA said that there was a fault in two cables, one of which has been repaired.
Repairs to the damaged SMW-4 submarine cable are expected to be completed by early October 2024, prolonging the ongoing internet slowdown across Pakistan, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said on Wednesday.
The PTA stated that “The ongoing internet slowdown across the country is mainly due to malfunctions in two of the seven international submarine cables (SMW4, AAE-1) that connect Pakistan to the international level.”
“It has been updated that the SMW-4 submarine cable fault is likely to be fixed by early October 2024.”
The authority added that the submarine cable AAE-1 has been repaired, which could improve the internet experience.
Pakistan is in the grip of widespread disruption of internet services, while X (formerly Twitter) has been blocked in the country for almost six months.
According to an IT association, since July, internet networks have been up to 40 percent slower than normal, while documents, photos, and voice notes on WhatsApp, used by tens of millions of people, have also been affected.
Last week, the PTA blamed “faulty submarine cable” for Internet outages in Pakistan, brushing off reports of the installation of firewalls.
PTA Chairman Major General Hafeezur Rahman (retd) told the National Assembly Standing Committee on IT that “the slowness of internet in the country is due to the failure of the submarine cable, which is expected to be repaired by the 28th of August.”
No firewalls are being installed, he said, adding that the government’s web management system is being upgraded.
Questions were also raised about whether other countries were facing similar submarine cable problems. “It is Pakistan’s submarine cable that has been affected, not others,” said the PTA chairman.
Concerns were also raised over the legality of VPN use, to which the PTA chairman said they were registering VPNs and not blocking them.
Elaborating further on the complexities of monitoring online content, he said, “While Article 19 guarantees freedom of expression, five or six categories must be considered when imposing restrictions. Each country has its own system. There is, and when the government issues directives to block certain content, we have to comply.”
It should be noted that Pakistan has been experiencing disruptions in internet service and these issues are linked to the implementation of internet firewalls, which were installed at the country’s main internet gateways to monitor and filter traffic. While these systems can control or block content on websites and social media platforms, officials claim, they also have the ability to trace the origin of objectionable content.
Earlier, the Minister of State for IT, Shiza Fatima, claimed that the widespread use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) caused internet disruption in Pakistan.
During a news conference in Islamabad, Shaza Fatima said that the Internet was neither blocked nor deliberately slowed down, but the increased use of VPNs put technical pressure on the network.
He noted that as some services became restricted, more users turned to VPNs, which he claimed had a negative impact on internet speeds in the country.
Digital rights experts had speculated that the government was testing the firewall – a security system that monitors network traffic but can also be used to control places online.