Islamabad: Internet users in Pakistan may experience slower connections during peak hours until November 2 as emergency maintenance affects an international cable carrying data between countries, according to Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL).
Work on the Asia Africa Europe 1 (AAE 1) submarine cable began on October 27, involving its section between Italy and France. PTCL described the possible impact as “minor service degradation” during peak hours.
A submarine cable is a fibre optic connection laid on the seabed. AAE 1 links Southeast Asia with Europe through Egypt and has a landing point in Karachi, making it one of Pakistan’s international internet routes.
Maintenance can affect users far from the work site because their data travels through interconnected networks. When capacity on one route becomes unavailable, traffic may need to use other routes. If those routes become congested, browsing, downloads and video calls can slow down, particularly when demand is high.
The impact will not necessarily be identical across providers or locations. The extent would depend on traffic routing and available alternative capacity, while the effect on individual service providers had not been confirmed.
For users, reduced speeds could mean buffering videos, interrupted calls or longer waits for files to upload. These are possible consequences of congestion, rather than evidence that every connection is affected.
The reports do not establish that this maintenance explains every internet complaint in Pakistan. They also do not confirm a nationwide outage or a precise reduction in speeds.
November two is the reported end of the maintenance window. Confirmation that the work has finished will be needed before normal performance can be assumed.
