Amid reports of slow internet speed from across the country on Tuesday morning, the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has said that it has "arranged for alternative channels for bandwidth" to compensate for a fault in an international submarine cable.
"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," the telecommunications company said 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 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.
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 and 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.
In the statement on its Twitter, the telecom regulator said, "Work is underway to remove the fault, which may take some time to rectify."
It added that meanwhile, alternative arrangements had been made by service providers, who had obtained additional bandwidth and capacity to meet the requirement of internet usage in the country and provide uninterrupted service.
Internet users in Pakistan had also faced disruptions in October this year 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 the Trans World Associates — one of the two licence holders for international landing stations of submarine cables.
