Further internet outages are expected in the coming days as upper Sindh’s floodwaters continue to drain, severing and harming fiber-optic links.
The repeated internet outages were primarily brought on by flood relief efforts in the Sukkur division, where fiber-optic cables were being damaged primarily by heavy machinery used to clear water in Sindh, according to a technical report submitted on Wednesday by Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) to the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom.
After learning of recent occurrences of frequent internet disruptions, the government ordered technical reports from PTCL and Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA). The PTA said that trenches dug at several locations to divert or drain out floodwater were to blame for the many cuts in fiber-optic cables rather than any sabotage or criminal activities.
The most recent internet service failures, which were observed on August 22 and 23, were attributed by the PTCL report to a number of cuts in the Ghotki, Khairpur, and Sukkur districts. The most serious damage was observed in the tehsil Ranipur of the Khairpur district. The minister for IT and telecom, Syed Aminul Haque, told Dawn that the situation appeared to be serious and that more things of this sort would happen soon.
Most underground cable channels have been drowned as a result of widespread flooding, which occurred when locals and relief workers attempted to divert floodwater by digging trenches on roads and footpaths, the official continued. The minister said that while the PTA is regularly evaluating the level of service, the government has instructed PTCL to declare an emergency so that repair work may be started immediately after any such event is logged in the system.
Around six terabytes of the internet were used in Pakistan overall, which was mostly provided by seven underwater internet cable systems, four of which are run by PTCL, two by Transworld Associates, and a newly operational cable system that is owned by a Chinese business. Nearly 80% of this internet traffic travels over the more than 50,000km-long, extensive PTCL network. Only 70% of the 6.5 terabytes of data that may be sent across PTCL’s cable network are being used, allowing for traffic to be diverted to alternative cables in the event of cable failure.
A vast number of internet service providers (ISPs), notably Storm Fiber and Nayatel, purchase bulk internet from PTCL in addition to its retail internet service, thus any damage to the company’s cable system affects consumers of other ISPs as well. According to a senior ministry official, reports of service interruptions and cable damage occur virtually every day, but when optic-fiber cables are damaged, the issue worsens.
However, there was no such problem for customers in Karachi, Hyderabad, Gwadar, and other districts of southern Sindh, the source said. As the cables were broken in upper Sindh, the internet service in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and some portions of Balochistan was interrupted, the official stated.
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