PTCL says internet slowdown issue to be fully resolved in next few days

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (PTCL) on Wednesday issued an update on the AAE-1 submarine cable issue, saying it added an additional bandwidth which has majorly resolved the matter of internet slowness.

“However, slowness might be experienced on Meta-related services (WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram) during peak hours,” the telecom company said in a statement.

The statement added that a complete resolution of the matter is expected in the next few days, adding that the PTCL and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) were working diligently to ensure the earliest possible resolution.

The PTA revealed last week that the internet and broadband users may experience disruptions as submarine cable AAE-1 near Qatar developed a fault.

The fault was reported in the submarine cable AAE-1 near Qatar — one of the seven international undersea cables connecting Pakistan for international internet traffic.

Earlier, the authority addressed the issue through the incorporation of a temporary bandwidth into the system.

Later, Minister of State for Information Technology and Telecommunication (IT) Shaza Fatima Khawaja said that efforts were underway to reroute an additional 200 gigabytes per second shortly.

In a statement, the IT minister said that 630 gigabytes per second of the affected traffic had already been shifted to an alternative route.

“The disruption in internet services due to a fault in the AAE-1 submarine cable affected 1,000 gigabytes per second of data traffic,” she had confirmed.