Internet services restored in Pakistan after submarine cable fault repaired

ISLAMABAD:  Internet services in Pakistan were restored after the fault in an international submarine cable was repaired, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said on Wednesday.

In a statement to the media, the PTA said that internet services have been completely restored in the country.

According to details, the faults in two international submarine cables SMW4 (South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4) and IMEWE (India-Middle East-Western Europe) occurred yesterday, and were rectified earlier today.

When asked to comment on the cause and loss incurred due to the outage, PTA spokesperson, Khurram Mehran told The News that the regulator have asked PTCL to provide a report after an investigation.

“Reasons and loss will be determined then,” he added.

Earlier, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) announced the restoration of internet traffic. “We are pleased to inform you that the SMW-4 submarine cable fault has been rectified and internet services have been restored.

PTCL further clarified that submarine cable AAE1 was never down during the recent outage and said it was misreported by certain quarters.

On Tuesday, internet users faced sudden disruption which was later identified as fault in submarine cable when PTCL informed a user that the problem is due to a fault.

"Due to international submarine cable fault, internet services have been impacted in Pakistan. Technical teams are working on fully restoring internet services in the shortest possible time. PTCL sincerely regrets this temporary inconvenience caused to valued customers," tweeted PTCL.

The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) also tweeted about an outage in the check-in systems of the airline across the country due to the fault in the international submarine cable.