Fault in submarine cable fixed in record time: PTCL

The Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (PTCL) has announced that it has swiftly tackled the fault in the international submarine cable in record time, resolving the issue of browsing slowdown. 

“We are pleased to inform you that the slow browsing issue caused by the international submarine cable AAE-1 outage has been resolved in record time,” the telecom firm said in a statement on Thursday.

It said the teams worked tirelessly to restore services, and “we sincerely appreciate your patience and understanding during this time”.

Last week, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said that the degradation of internet services across the country was resolved through the incorporation of a temporary bandwidth into the system.

An ad hoc bandwidth was arranged and added in the system to address the issue of degradation of Internet services due to fault in AAE1 submarine cable on January 2, 2025, as per the statement.

"Now there is no degradation of Internet services across the country," the PTA had said.

The PTCL manages the AAE-1 along with two other submarine internet cables, SMW-4 and IMEWE (India-Middle East-Western Europe).

The auxiliary connections from these cables reach Karachi. The SMW-4 and IMEWE have landing stations at Hawksbay Beach, while the AAE-1 lands at Clifton Beach.

Transworld Associates operates SMW-5 (South-East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-5) as well as regional cable TWA-1 from Karachi to the UAE and Oman, connecting internet traffic from Pakistan with the international hubs in the Gulf countries.

The Cyber Internet Services Ltd operates ‘PEACE’ cable originating from China and terminates the land route at Misri Shah area, DHA Karachi, to enter the sea on way to Europe.