Pakistan PM Shehbaz urged to intervene as slow internet bleeds economy – Pakistan

• Telecom operators fear country will lose Rs 12 billion annually if urgent action is not taken
• PTA says two out of seven submarine cables faulty; IT minister, PTA chief miss Senate meeting

ISLAMABAD: While the Telecom Operators Association has sought the prime minister’s intervention to resolve the internet disruptions that could cost the national economy billions of rupees, the Information Technology Minister and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) chairman skipped the meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology over the internet issue.

In recent weeks, Pakistani internet users have reported significant speed drops and disruptions on social media platforms, such as Facebook and WhatsApp. Businesses and internet service providers (ISPs) have accused the government of intentionally slowing down digital services by installing a “firewall,” but the government blamed the problems on VPNs. It later attributed the slowdown to a fault in undersea cables.

Internet expert Doug Madory seconded the claim about the submarine cable failure, saying that the reduced internet capacity for Pakistan was due to a failure of the submarine cables. “We can see that PTCL (AS17557) lost transit of TMnet (AS4788), NTT (AS2914) and Lumen (AS3356) following the SMW-4 outage on June 17. It recently recovered Lumen, but these losses would indeed result in reduced capacity for #Pakistan,” Madory tweeted on Wednesday evening.

While damaged cables can affect internet speed and this is not the first time this has happened, the intermittent outage of social media apps for extended periods of time is unprecedented.

The Prime Minister asked for help

In reference to the disruptions, telecom operators have sought intervention from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a letter dated Thursday, saying that the internet slowdown could cost Pakistan nearly Rs 12 billion annually. According to the association, the nationwide slowdown will have significant and long-lasting economic repercussions if not identified and rectified immediately.

They also expressed their willingness to engage in dialogue and help the concerned circles find solutions to improve the current situation of slowing down the Internet. The letter addressed to the Prime Minister stated that due to the reduction in Internet traffic, the country would suffer losses of around Rs 12 billion per year, adding that the daily Internet traffic in the country had decreased by around 6,400 terabytes.

“This will significantly increase the financial pressure on the telecom sector. Moreover, the corresponding loss to the exchequer due to decline in revenue from the telecom sector will exceed Rs 3 billion per year,” he said. The letter stressed that disruptions in internet speed would have a negative impact on foreign direct investment, blue-collar workforce, information technology industry, self-employed workers as well as GDP.

“Failure in submarine cables”

In a press release, the PTA said the slowdown in internet connectivity and degradation of services was “due to a fault in two of the seven international submarine cables connecting Pakistan to overseas.” According to the authority, “the AAE-1 cable suffered a 250G fault due to a diversion between Iran and Qatar; similarly, the SMW-4 (1.5T) cable was out of service due to faults near Karachi.”

The PTA said operators were redirecting traffic to other available cables to minimise the impact on internet users in Pakistan, adding that the relevant teams were fixing the problem.

VPNs accused again

At a meeting of the Senate information technology committee, the government once again blamed the slowdown on faulty undersea cables and the growing use of VPNs. The explanations came at a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunications, as lawmakers criticized the internet disruptions and sought explanations from affected circles.

Chaired by Senator Palwasha Khan, the panel highlighted several issues including the absence of the Minister of Information Technology and the Director of the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA). The meeting postponed the agenda related to Long Distance and International (LDI) operators due to non-participation of relevant authorities. The next meeting will focus on these issues.

The committee also questioned the ban on “X” (formerly Twitter), which was allegedly implemented on the instructions of the Interior Ministry.

The session began with a presentation on the functioning and performance of Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) and Electronic Certification Accreditation Council. It was noted that PSEB, established in 1995 as a Private Software Export Board, was functioning under a seven-member Board of Directors.

Currently, 26,000 IT companies are registered with SECP. Despite the global IT market being worth $5 trillion, Pakistan’s share was less than 0.04%, while IT products accounted for 24% of the IT growth this year, the same growth rate as last year.

The committee was informed that 54 per cent of Pakistan’s information technology exports went to the US, 21 per cent to Europe, 10 per cent to the Gulf countries and 14 per cent to the Asia Pacific region. There are currently 2,124 web designing services companies, 452 network security companies and 616 data storage and management companies.

Additionally, Pakistan had 3,463 IT consulting companies, 870 social media consulting companies, 465 email marketing companies, 664 IT support companies, 940 cloud service providers and 81 repair service companies.

Similarly, the committee also took note of the recruitment of the Secretary of the IT Ministry on contractual basis rather than his appointment from the pool of federal civil servants.

Published in Dawn, August 23, 2024