While customers remain confused over internet service slowdown in many areas of the country but mainly in Karachi, the companies remain mute over the matter.
The late night disruptions in the internet speed was felt mainly by the customers of Cybernet and Storm fibre.However there was no statement or acknowledgement by the companies ,the ministry of IT and Telecom nor the telecom regulator Pakistan Telecommunications Authority.
While the minister for IT&Telecom Shaza Fatima responded that “Snapchat and other major app were down due to Amazon web service outage worldwide.”
On the other hand some business operating after regular office hours – like media were informed by the teams of Cybernet that their service will suffer due to cable damage.
The slow internet speed also provided an opportunity to social media enthusiasts to take on new topic at platforms like X erstwhile twitter.
One Mr Habibullah Khan stated that Internet was bad and further claimed that it was because PEACE cable is down. “It’s a cable cut on the core system.
They are running tests to localise the fault location,” he posted at X and even announced to update once the location is confirmed.
Similarly, some others posted that up to 50 percent of internet speed is down in Pakistan due to the accident at the undersea cable system.Despite lack of any confirmation from the companies or any authority, the suspicion that Peace cable has suffered damage as the Cyber Internet Services operates the PEACE cable.
This cable system originates in China and ends its land route at Karachi’s Misri Shah area, near Defence Society. It enters the sea on its way to Europe.The PEACE cable provides 600 gigabytes per second (Gbps) internet facility to Pakistan.
One terabyte containing 1,000 gigabytes and the total capacity of six internet cable systems in the country stands at 13tbps (tera bites per second) and the consumption ranges between seven and eight tbps.
Excess capacity of 30 to 40 per cent has to be maintained for internet cables so that the load can be shifted to the unutilised connection in case a cable gets damaged due to any reason. According to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) the other cables networks of the country are operated by the state owned telecom company PTCL and the Trans World Associates.
Three undersea cable networks operated by the PTCL are AAE-1 (Africa, Asia and Europe), SMW4 (South-East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe) and the IMEWE (India-Middle East-Western Europe).The SMW-4 and IMEWE have landing stations at Hawksbay beach while the AAE-1 lands at Clifton beach Karachi.
While، Trans World Associates (Pvt.) Ltd also operates submarine cables the SMW5 and the TWA1.
