P@SHA laments being kept 'out of loop' on internet slowdown issue

As netizens and businesses continue to suffer due to internet slowdown, the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) on Monday lamented being kept "out of loop" by the government on the said issue.

Speaking on Geo News' programme "Geo Pakistan", P@SHA's Senior Vice Chairman said: "We want to work with them [government]. What such need arose that we have been thrown out of the loop."

Ihsan's complain comes as millions of Pakistanis face issues in accessing internet which the experts link to increased security and surveillance owing to the installation of a firewall to control unwanted content from reaching a wider audience.

The internet firewall in question provisions filters that will block unwanted content from reaching the masses and will be used to inspect information originating from different internet protocol addresses.

There will be a keyword filtering system to detect content the government considers undesirable or prejudicial to national security etc, and such posts will likely be camouflaged and will subsequently be made invisible to outside users.

This filter will run its check on social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube and X (formerly known as Twitter).

Meanwhile, preparation is also in progress to prevent the "misuse" of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) as the government can declare it mandatory for citizens to inform the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) about the virtual private networks (VPNs) they are using.

However, the government, while rebuking allegations that it was responsible for internet slowdown, has attributed the issue to the use of VPNs.

"I can swear that the government of Pakistan did not block the internet or slow it down [....] Turning VPN on slows down the phone," she said during a press conference in Islamabad on Sunday.

Elaborating on the issue, the P@SHA official recalled that no issue had arisen in the past 10 years as they were kept in the loop and questioned as to what such need had emerged that they were excluded from the policy matters.

"P@SHA and the PTA had previously held discussions on ban on VPN where we advised them how businesses can be protected [...] if we were to be taken into confidence this time we would've told them to whitelist IT businesses and not subject them to internet firewall as our IPs are tracked via identification records," Ihsan said.

"We cannot guide them with solutions if the information isn't shared with us [....] If we are taken on board now we would advise them to disable certain things for two weeks and release it after thorough testing," the P@SHA representative noted.

Stressing that at least some filtering mechanism was in place for the past 10 years he questioned what had happened exactly this time that the businesses have been affected.

'Firewall bypassing CDNs'

Commenting on the economic impact of the internet disruptions, he revealed that P@SHA estimates a loss of $300 million loss in light of existing complaints by the businesses and the reputational damage.

"If someone was giving you a business of $10-15 million and now decides against it then other clients will also raise questions in future [before giving you business.

"No matter how good your relations are [...] clients would not give you business if they got to know there some issue with the internet," he noted.

Underscoring the internet slowdown's effect on businesses, Ihsan said that leading Information Technology companies have complained that 40% of their BPO services have been affected.

We have it on record that a leading healthcare company whose business in Pakistan might be around $50 million and conducts its business primarily in the United States, its 200 lines were down for one week, whereas another has complained of losing contracts and losses in their core line of business, the P@SHA official noted.

"I myself was negotiating a contract worth $500,000 when my virtual call dropped for about one and a half hours," he decried.

Reacting to Minister Shaza Khawaja's remarks regarding the use of VPNs, he questioned as to how many people can be using the tool at the same time.

He also noted that there is a likelihood that the internet firewall itself was bypassing the content delivery networks (CDNs) due to which [internet] traffic is being choked

"We fear that certain technology was being used whose lack of proper integration will prevent this issue from being solved in the short term altogether," the association's senior vice chairman said.

'More than 2 million freelancers affected'

Calling on the government to address the internet issue, the Pakistan Freelancers Association (PAFLA) said that there had been an internet slowdown and disruptions for the past three weeks.

PAFLA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tufail Ahmed Khan revealed that as many as 2.3 million freelancers in Pakistan have been facing difficulties in delivering their work on time to clients.

"There is a chance that our [Pakistan's] rating will be downgraded over [freelancers'] failure to deliver on time," Khan said, adding that the internet shutdown was not only creating problems for freelancers but was also affecting the country's economy as well.