Pakistan internet traffic has been restored on major submarine cable South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) after facing intermittent congestion on the networks of different service providers in the past fortnight.
Officials of the cable system providers said the overall internet and telephony traffic has been switched completely over on SEA-ME-WE 4 again as technical problem was rectified on radio link near Egypt.
The internet services in different cities of Pakistan have been normalized on the networks of all internet service providers (ISPs) connected with two undersea cable-Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) and Transworld.
The services earlier faced constant interruption on the networks of different ISPs multiple times in last two weeks. The download and browsing speed slowed down while services were reportedly complete blackout on some networks during the same period.
As per report, the first outage occurred on March 17 from 1:57am to 11:13am, the second outage on March 20 from 4:29pm to 12:46am, the third on March 23 from 8:57pm to 10:40pm and the fourth on March 24 from 4:24pm to 4:56pm.
Meanwhile, the two backbone providers have shifted their internet traffic to SEA-ME-WE 3 in order to avoid congestion on their routes.
The traffic was diverted on alternative route several times to provide uninterrupted service to ISPs, Taimur Amjad, Deputy Director Transworld Associates said.
The problem was propped up uncertainly, therefore, it took a little time to fix it, he said and added the system swap is a challenging process as the volume of internet traffic has been increased in the last couple of years.
PTCL’s official said the ISPs having facility of bandwidth switching provided services with little interruption, whereas small operators faced problem on their networks.
He said the services are ensured to defense, logistics and media of the country in case of emergency. After that, commercial and domestic sectors are provided uninterrupted service in big cities by ISPs and cable system providers.
According to the Internet Service Providers’ Association of Pakistan (ISPAK), there are 50 ISPs providing internet services to 10 million commercial and domestic users.
PTCL is operating three cable systems SEA-ME-WE 3, SEA-ME-WE-4 and IMEWE whereas Transworld is functioning one cable system that is TWI.
@ Admin are wimax providers like qubee included in that?
according to my knowledge there are two provides wo get services 4m SEA-ME-WE3,4 and IMEWE
they are WATEEN and PTCL
if i m wrong plz correct me
I think the backbone is still the same,correct me if I am wrong.
Yup, everyone is hurt !
correct your last line..
“PTCL is operation three..” it should be “PTCL is operating three..”
This happens on and off. Unfortunately. This is not the first time our main ‘link’ to west has been broken.
Sometimes its congestion and there have been times when the links physically break. In such a scenario, I have found the best workaround if your main target is Pakistan/Asia:
Stop hosting in the US! Look into countires like HK and Malaysia. The rates are cheaper, they open up before us and … with respect to Pakistan, perform better and are more consistent.