PTCL makes 'alternative arrangements' after submarine cable fault disrupts internet

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) said on Tuesday that it has arranged alternative channels for bandwidth after a fault in the international submarine cable caused connectivity issues in several areas of the country.

“With reference to AAE-1 (Asia-Africa-Europe-1) international submarine cable cut, we have arranged alternate channels for bandwidth to meet the requirement of internet usage in Pakistan,” the PTCL said in a statement.

The telecommunications company added that the measure had improved customer experience “without any major impact on services.”

Earlier, a fault was reported in one of the international submarine cables in the sea near Karachi that affected internet speed by almost one terabyte during peak hours.

The company said that work was underway and it could take a few more hours to completely rectify the fault.

Internet service disruption: Faulty submarine cable repaired, says PTA

AAE -1 is the first high-capacity cable system to link all of the major Southeast Asian nations to Africa and Europe via the Middle East. It connects Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, with Malaysia and Singapore, then onwards to Myanmar, India, Pakistan, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Yemen, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Italy, and France.

AAE-1 cable system deploys state-of-the-art 100Gbps transmission technology with a capacity of 40 Terabits per second across 5 fiber pairs.

The PTCL said it was working to upgrade the technology to higher transmission rates to meet increasing bandwidth demand.

“However, customers might face slight service degradation across the country till the addition of more bandwidth,” it added.