Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Tuesday said users of Trans World Associates (TWA), one of the two license holders for international landing stations of submarine cables, could face bandwidth disruptions due to a reported breakage in the company’s submarine cable system.
The PTA said the fault was reported around 6pm on Monday and caused an out age of international bandwidth. “[It] may result in degradation of internet services for users of Transworld bandwidth,” the statement said.
It added that the consortium was arranging ad hoc bandwidth to minimise the impact and efforts were ongoing to ascertain the exact location of the fault as well as the expected restoration time.
Social media was also abuzz with complaints of disruption and slowdown in internet services.
Nayatel said most of its service operators were affected across the country and sent out an alert to its customers, saying they might face slow internet speeds. It said the problem has existed since Monday morning.
In December 2021, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited said it had “arranged for alternative channels for bandwidth” to compensate for a fault in an international submarine cable amid reports of slow internet speed from across the country.
Internet users in Pakistan had also faced disruptions in October 2021 when a submarine cable developed a fault near Fujairah, United Arab Emirates.
Prior to that in February, one of the country’s six international submarine cables had developed a fault near Abu Talat, Egypt, causing a degradation in internet services across Pakistan. The fault was later repaired by TWA.
