A major internet outage brought services to a standstill across nearly two-thirds of Pakistan earlier this week, severely impacting communication, banking, e-commerce, and online education. The disruption began around 2:45 PM and lasted for several hours, affecting both urban and rural regions, including major cities like Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, and Peshawar.
According to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the disruption was caused by a dual submarine cable fault, which damaged two major international fiber optic links. These undersea cables are the backbone of Pakistan’s internet connectivity, and the damage led to sharp drops in data transfer speeds and widespread service failures for major ISPs.
Telecom providers, including PTCL, StormFiber, Nayatel, and Transworld, issued public statements apologizing for the outage and assured users that emergency repair work was underway in coordination with international partners. Limited bandwidth was temporarily rerouted through backup channels, but full restoration took several hours to complete.
The outage caused chaos for businesses, students, and public institutions that rely heavily on the internet. Online banking and e-wallet apps remained inaccessible, Zoom and Google Meet calls were disrupted, and e-commerce deliveries were delayed. The incident sparked frustration among users, with #InternetDown trending across social media platforms.
Cybersecurity experts have called for greater redundancy in infrastructure, suggesting the addition of alternate satellite internet systems and more diversified international links to prevent such widespread blackouts in the future. The government is now reviewing disaster recovery plans and working with telecom regulators to improve resilience against similar disruptions.
