Fiber optic cable damaged due to flood, more internet outages expected in coming days

Internet users may face more disruptions in the coming days as the release of flood water in Upper Sindh may cause further damage to fiber optic cables.

A report submitted by the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) to the Ministry of Information Technology (IT) and Telecom said that internet outages were mainly due to flood relief efforts in Sukkur Division. was, where the fiber optics were damaged mainly by the heavy machinery used to drain the flood.

According to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), in view of the continuous internet outages in recent days, the Ministry of Information Technology has requested technical reports from PTCL and the telecom sector regulator.

The PTA said that the fiber optic cables at various locations were not affected by any vandalism or criminal activity. This happened because pits were dug at various places to drain or drain the flood water.

PTCL's report said the latest internet outage was due to multiple outages in Ghotki, Khairpur and Sukkur districts on August 22-23. The most damage was done in Ranipur tehsil of Khairpur district.

IT and Telecommunication Minister Syed Aminul Haque said that based on initial reports, the situation is serious and more such incidents can be expected in the future.

"Due to massive flooding, most of the underground cable routes are submerged as rescuers or local people dig trenches on roads and footpaths to drain the floodwater," he added.

Amin ul Haq said that the IT Ministry has ordered PTCL to declare an emergency so that repair work can be started if any such incident is reported in the system, while PTA's service Quality is constantly monitored.

The total Internet usage in Pakistan was about 6 terabytes, mainly provided by seven sub-internet cable systems, including four from PTCL, two from Transworld Associates, and a new cable system that was recently launched. It's live now. Coming Online, owned by a Chinese company, about 80 percent of Internet traffic comes from PTCL's extensive network of over 50,000 km.

The PTCL cable network has a capacity of 6.5 terabytes of data, but only 70% is used to transfer traffic to other cables in case of loss.

Apart from their own retail internet service, a number of internet service providers such as Storm Fiber and Niatel buy internet from PTCL, any damage to the company's cable system could result in internet service disruption. And other users of the service are also affected.

According to senior officials of the Ministry of Information Technology, almost every day there are reports of cable damage and reduced service, but when fiber optic cables are damaged, the situation becomes dire. Internet service was affected in some areas of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan due to cable damage in Upper Sindh, but users in Karachi, Hyderabad, Gwadar and other districts of South Sindh did not face any such problem.