Internet users may face more outages in the coming days as the release of floodwaters in Upper Sindh may further damage fiber optic cables. ...
Internet users may face more outages in the coming days as the release of floodwaters in Upper Sindh may further damage fiber optic cables.
According to a report published in mak news-21, the report submitted by the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) to the Ministry of Information Technology (IT) and Telecom states that the internet outage is mainly in Sukkur Division. This is due to the flood relief efforts where the fiber optic was damaged mainly by the heavy machinery used to clear the flood water in Sindh.
According to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), taking notice of the continuous internet outages in recent days, the Ministry of Information Technology had sought technical reports from PTCL and the regulator of the telecom sector.
The PTA said that the fiber optic cables from several places were not the hands of any vandalism or criminal activity but because trenches were dug at various places to divert or drain the flood water.
Also Read: Internet Service Affected In Pakistan, Users Facing Difficulties
The PTCL report said that the last interruption in internet service was on August 22 and 23 due to multiple outages in Ghotki, Khairpur and Sukkur districts, with the worst loss occurring in Ranipur tehsil of Khairpur district.
IT and Telecom Minister Syed Aminul Haq said that according to initial reports the situation is serious and more such incidents can be expected in the future.
"Due to the massive flooding, most of the underground cable routes are submerged, as rescue workers or local people dig trenches on roads and footpaths to drain the floodwaters," he added. .
Aminul Haque said that the IT Ministry has directed PTCL to declare an emergency so that repair work can be initiated if any such incident is reported in the system, while PTA service Constantly monitoring the quality.
Read more: Internet service affected in Pakistan due to submarine cable failure
The total Internet usage in Pakistan was about 6 terabytes, which is primarily provided by seven submarine Internet cable systems, including four by PTCL, two by Transworld Associates and a new cable system that was recently commissioned. Aya Online, owned by a Chinese company, has around 80 percent of Internet traffic coming through PTCL's extensive network of more than 50,000 km.
The PTCL cable network has a capacity of 6.5 terabytes of data but only 70% of it is used to transfer the traffic to other cables in case of damage.
Also Read: Internet slows down in Pakistan due to underwater cable failure
Apart from its own retail internet service, a large number of internet service providers such as Storm Fiber and Niatel buy internet from PTCL, any damage to the company's cable system results in disruption of internet service. And other service users are also affected.
A senior official of the Ministry of Information Technology said that there are almost daily reports of cable damage and loss of service, but when optic fiber cables are damaged, the situation becomes serious. Internet service was affected in some areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan but there was no such problem for users in Karachi, Hyderabad, Gwadar and other districts of South Sindh.
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