Islamabad – A large-scale internet blackout experienced in Pakistan on Tuesday evening had thrown the entire country in digital darkness, affecting communication and business activities in the country.
This was caused by a serious technical failure of the network of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), the main backbone service provider in the country.
As per NetBlocks, a global internet observatory, national connectivity levels have dropped to only 20 percent of their normal levels, indicative of their vulnerability to single-point failures of their digital infrastructure.
The outage started late in the evening and was instantly experienced by millions of internet customers, including individual consumers and large corporate entities. Businesses were trying to shut down their daily operations, and the outage slowed down critical banking transactions, point-of-sale systems, and inter-office communications.
Social media was soon overwhelmed with complaints and reports of service being disrupted with users complaining how their lives were being hampered by the sudden loss of connectivity in both PTCL and Ufone services.
PTCL, a leading gateway to other internet service providers (ISPs) in the nation, addressed the crisis in a statement shared by the company on social media. According to the company, it was experiencing data connectivity issues, and that it is working assuring its customers that its technical teams are working diligently to restore services.
The statement, however, gave no concrete information on what caused the outage, and many users were left to make guesses on what led to the technical fault. This incident highlighted just how important PTCL has become in the internet ecosystem of the country and how a domino effect can be created by their operational problems on the rest of the nation.
Connectivity Restored
According to a statement by PTCL on X, the issues has been resolved. But the blackout was a timely reminder of how highly dependent Pakistan is on a centralized internet infrastructure.
Although there are a number of service providers in the country, many rely on the submarine cable landing stations of PTCL and national fiber-optic backbone to connect to the rest of the world.
An error in this core network, be it a physical cut on a fiber or a technical misconfiguration can thus initiate a domino effect that disables the whole digital landscape. This dependency poses a huge security and economic threat, and the nation becomes vulnerable to large scale digital blackouts.
A Recurring Pattern of Internet Outage
The latest outage is not a rare case but a continuation of the trend of internet problems in Pakistan. Such connectivity problems are common in the country and are usually a result of an intertwining of factors.
Among the most frequent causes is the breakage of submarine fiber-optic cables that link Pakistan to the rest of the world on the internet. The cables at the bottom of the sea are vulnerable to being severed by fishing trawler or ship anchors or even natural seismic activity resulting in an immediate and widespread outage.
Domestic infrastructure failure (including fiber cuts on land) is another common cause. It may occur as a result of continuous road construction works, city development works, or vandalism. Also, problems associated with technicalities, such as equipment failure in data centre or power outages that disrupt the communication infrastructure, are other likely culprits.
