KARACHI: Users in Pakistan were facing slow internet speed as services are impacted due to technical fault in the International Submarine Cable AAE-1 near Karachi, the national telecommunication service provider said on Tuesday.
However, alternate arrangements to provide uninterrupted internet services to the users have been made by relevant service providers by obtaining additional bandwidth and capacity to meet the requirements.
“With reference to AAE-1 ( Asia-Africa-Europe-1) international submarine cable cut, we have arranged alternate channels for bandwidth to meet the requirement of internet usage in Pakistan,” said the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) in a statement.
It added that the measure had “resulted in improved customer experience, without any major impact on services [due to the cable cut]”.
The PTCL assured that the bandwidth capacity would be further increased in the next few days to address the issue. “However, customers might face slight service degradation across the country till the addition of more bandwidth,” it added.
Later, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) also issued a statement, saying that a fault in one of the international submarine cables had been reported under the sea near Karachi, affecting “some internet traffic” during peak hours.
However, alternate arrangements to provide uninterrupted internet services to the users have been made by relevant service providers through obtaining additional bandwidth and capacity to meet the requirements.
— PTA (@PTAofficialpk) December 21, 2021
In the statement on its Twitter, the telecom regulator said, “Work is underway to remove the fault, which may take some time to rectify.”
The AAE-1 is a 25,000km consortium cable system connecting South East Asia to Europe via Egypt. It connects Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, with Malaysia and Singapore, then onwards to Myanmar, India, Pakistan, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Yemen, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Italy and France.
The AAE-1 cable system deploys 100 gigabytes per second transmission technology, with a minimum design capacity of 40 terabytes per second.
Internet users in Pakistan had also faced disruptions in October this year when a submarine cable developed a fault near Fujairah, United Arab Emirates.
