Pakistan Faces Major Internet Outage [Updated]

The internet has gone down for a significant number of users across Pakistan.

While we don’t have direct confirmation from ISPs themselves just yet, it appears that the internet disruption is more severe for PTCL and ISPs that rely on PTCL’s bandwidth. Other ISPs are facing outages on shorter scale.

PTCL said that it is not yet aware of any internet disruption and that things are running fine on their end.

Our early investigations have revealed that routing beyond PIE isn’t getting through and anything that sits beyond PIE isn’t accessible.

So far, these websites have been reported as unresponsive;

  • Amazon,
  • Slack,
  • iShopping,
  • ProPakistani.PK
  • Olx

Please feel free to share your experience and any sites that aren’t working for you in the comments below.

This is a developing story and we will update it when and if we get more info.

Update:

It appears that things are getting back to normal after 30 minutes of complete down time. But its not fully restored as of yet, we can confirm this.

Reportedly the internet disruption was spread across the region due to some submarine cable issue that we are not aware about yet. We can assume that PTCL is now triggering its back-up routes to get the internet live again.

Tell us in comments if your internet is working or not.

Tech and telecom reporter for over 15 years


  • Propakistani working fine here on my office net. Other are blocked due to their content nature.

      • Whole local websites were down. Tribune, dawn, propak, yayvo etc however, Google page was working. I complaint to ptcl helpline and they confirmed that they were getting these complaints in large number. Also no apps were accessing net like whatsapp, speed test etc.
        Note: not just ptcl but i tried connecting via mobile data of ufone but that too was not working, however jazz was working.

  • Having same issue, some sites in US are not reachable, others are working just fine. No issues this morning, so something must have happened late afternoon.

  • I just opened Propakistani.pk on my Nayatel. Rest 3 are not working.

  • Happened to me 20 mins ago. Only YouTube working on my PTCL no access to other websites
    BTW no issue on Zong 4g

  • Huh, was just wondering what the problem was. Thought it was yet another IT department mishap at the office. Propakistani seems to be working fine though.

    • Think PTCL is having issues and other companies which are using their services are also affected but not as much. All speculation though.

  • Basically Internet has not completely gone out i am using PTCL the problem is that for a couple of weeks now since after eid the download speed is not up to the mark i have a 4 MB connection of PTCL and the downloading speed I’m receiving is in between 150 – 180 kbps max…

      • actuall there is a problem in DNS because PTCL DNS servers are unresponsive and we get timed out error switch to google dns which is faster to access sites or use vpn for sites that are not working

    • tw had fiber cut issue on 2nd july its fixed now there is fiber cut on sea-me-w 4 that is why ptcl is down

      • TW has a cut 30 kilometre of Pakistan coastline. It will take 30 days minimum to fix this cut. TW has moved its traffic on SMW5 but some destination is still got bad delays/latencies.

        SMW4 on the other hand is undergoing scheduled maintainece for which PTCL has posted advance notice. The work will be completed in 10 days. PTCL has 3 other cables and it has moved the traffic onto AAE1 SMW3 and IMEWE cables.

        Please get facts corrected.

        • my package is 8 mbps unlimited but i am getting 4 mbps max and latency is so bad that speedtest gets stuck at connecting to server and the web browsing is also too slow to the point that pages won’t even load

  • Looks like it was an outage for 15 to 20 Minutes. ProPakistani please update more details on this article. Thanks!

  • propakistani
    geo tv
    jang paper
    urdupoint

    and too many other sites not responding over PTCL till now.

    PS: I thought something wrong at my end. rebooted routers 3 times and flush dns too …LOL

  • I can’t access some websites but by using proxy I can access them. These website were easily access able till noon.

  • Everything was fine except downloading some nuget packages for Visual Studio

  • Maintenance activity to be carried out on SMW-4 network, Below is the planned activities details:
    REP replacement activity of (R4125)-1st Activity
    · Segment : Sub-segment – S4.1 (Segment 4)
    · Repeater Planned for replacement : R4101 1st repeater from Alexandria towards Palermo.
    · Expected Traffic Outage period : 3rd July 2017 (04:00 Hrs PST) to 8th July 2017

    REP replacement activity of (R4101)-2nd Activity
    · Segment : Sub-segment – S4.1 (Segment 4)
    · Repeater Planned for replacement : R4125 2nd repeater from Alexandria towards Palermo.
    · Expected Traffic Outage period : 15th July 2017 to 21st July 2017 as per POW. (subject to availability of permit arranged by TE MA)

  • I am experiencing that issue too. But now I am using proxy and all website are accessible now!

  • All websites are working now. Whatever the Issue was, it is resolved now :)

  • sites are working fine but my net speed is only 70-90KB for 5 seconds and then it becomes 0 KB(Just like when internet is disconnected and after 5 seconds have passed my net speed is same 70-90KBs)it is happening to me for couple of days….

  • True i have 8mb ptcl connection and today suddenly after noon started having browsing issues in some sites including speedtest.net but others like google and youtube worked just fine at the same time i got that the problem has happend on the route somewhere where carring those data.

  • I agree. There was some kind of half Internet working half not issue with my PTCL Faisalabad. PTCL DNS issue with sites is years old common issue but this time it expanded widely to most of sites opening.

  • PTCL has some DNS issues, nothing more than that. Websites were not unresponsive. Connecting though VPN worked fine for me in that period.

  • SMW-4 network

    REP replacement activity of (R4125)-1st Activity
    · Segment : Sub-segment – S4.1 (Segment 4)
    · Repeater Planned for replacement : R4101 1st repeater from Alexandria towards Palermo.
    · Expected Traffic Outage period : 3rd July 2017 (04:00 Hrs PST) to 8th July 2017

    REP replacement activity of (R4101)-2nd Activity
    · Segment : Sub-segment – S4.1 (Segment 4)
    · Repeater Planned for replacement : R4125 2nd repeater from Alexandria towards Palermo.
    · Expected Traffic Outage period : 15th July 2017 to 21st July 2017 as per POW. (subject to availability of permit arranged by TE MA)

  • Something to do with Transworld undersea cable and all those who depended on TW shifted to PIE (PTCL) and hence the downtime due to overburden. But the network was back up pretty quickly.

  • The upstream providers that as per SMW4 MNOC, the two repeaters replacement activities between Alexandria (Egypt) & Palermo (Italy) have been scheduled
    …Copyright (C) 2017 https://cyberian. pk .

  • PTCL is at it again
    27th July
    nothing works except for youtube streaming

    about time they called PTCL obsolete and called off the monopoly

  • Many websites are not opening on PTCL, one main point is all blogger sub domains and custom .com domains are not accessible on PTCL, from 25th July. as i have also seen many users reporting and talking about this on blogger help forum also..

  • yes there is a problem with the PTCL Broadband… the internet is working but its very slow.. and yes most of the websites are not accessible


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