By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Internet services across Pakistan returned to normal on Friday after engineers repaired a fault in an international submarine cable system that had disrupted connectivity for users nationwide over the preceding two days, the country’s telecommunications regulator said.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said in a statement that restoration work on the SEA-ME-WE 5 (SMW5) undersea cable system had been completed and that internet traffic had resumed its normal flow.
The disruption was first flagged by the PTA on Thursday, when the regulator said it was monitoring degraded service quality after a fault developed along the SMW5 route, one of several submarine cable systems that carry Pakistan’s international internet traffic. The regulator said at the time that some users could experience intermittent slowdowns in connectivity as a result of the fault.
Transworld Associates (TWA), the private operator that manages the affected cable, coordinated with the SMW5 Consortium to determine the cause of the fault and estimate a timeline for repairs, the PTA said. TWA is Pakistan’s only private-sector operator with exclusive ownership of submarine fibre-optic cable infrastructure, according to the company’s website.
While repairs were under way, internet traffic was rerouted through alternate international links in an effort to limit the impact on users and maintain service continuity, the PTA said.
TWA also sent a text message to its customers acknowledging the disruption. The message cited a technical fault in one of the company’s submarine cables and said technical teams were working to resolve the issue, without specifying a timeframe.
The PTA said it had remained in close coordination with stakeholders throughout the disruption and would continue to monitor the network following the repair.
Pakistan has sought to bolster its international bandwidth capacity in recent years by adding new submarine cable links. In November, the SEA-ME-WE 6 cable landed in the country, offering total system capacity exceeding 100 terabits per second. The information technology ministry said Pakistan had been allocated 13.2 terabits per second of that capacity and that the cable would provide one of the lowest-latency routes connecting Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Western Europe.
The ministry said the new cable carries more fibre pairs and more than double the capacity of earlier SEA-ME-WE systems, and is designed to improve network resilience through geographically diversified crossings and landing points across high-traffic Asia-Europe routes, including a route through Egypt.
Despite the additional capacity, Pakistan’s telecom network has continued to face reliability challenges. In May, Information Technology and Telecommunication Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja told the National Assembly that repeated power outages were among the leading causes of slow internet speeds and declining service quality across the country.
In written replies to lawmakers, Khawaja said unreliable grid electricity and greater reliance on solar power, particularly during shorter winter days, had reduced backup capacity at telecom sites. She said difficult terrain, harsh weather, security concerns and restricted access had delayed maintenance work in some areas, while fibre cuts, disruptions to backhaul networks and equipment theft had further affected service continuity.
Khawaja said Pakistan’s international connectivity had strengthened with the landing of three submarine cables in recent years and that fibre-optic infrastructure had expanded significantly across the country. Fibre-based home internet connections rose to 5.1 million from 1.9 million over the two years to 2024, she said.
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