ISLAMABAD (Kashmir English): Pakistan Telecommunications Limited (PTCL) has said that internet subscribers in the country can expect slower speeds and reduced connectivity on Tuesday because of maintenance activities on a submarine cable.
PTCL announced that the maintenance job is being done to replace a defective repeater in the undersea cable system. The maintenance process will begin on October 14 at approximately 11:00 a.m. PST and may take up to 18 hours. “We apologize for the inconvenience during this time, and the customers will experience Internet service degradation,” the company announced.
The move follows reports that users in Pakistan have already begun experiencing difficulties in accessing social media websites, including Facebook and Instagram, as internet monitoring platform Downdetector reported. The platform’s records indicate a surge in user reports of outages in the last 24 hours.
This is not the first time submarine cable outages have disrupted Pakistan’s internet services. Only last month, PTCL warned that cable cuts in Saudi waters would cut connectivity to a crawl during peak hours.
PTCL has reassured customers that it is making all efforts to restore normal service as soon as possible and has issued an apology for any inconvenience caused by the maintenance.
The blackout occurred just after the weekend, when mobile internet services were entirely shut down in Islamabad and Lahore for a few days in the wake of mass protests.
