Two-Thirds of Pakistan Was Hit by Massive Internet Outage

Large parts of Pakistan were knocked offline on Tuesday as another major internet outage swept across the country, disrupting businesses, financial services, and everyday life. Nearly two-thirds of users are estimated to be affected, making this one of the most severe disruptions in recent years.

While connectivity problems have become an unfortunate routine for Pakistan, the recent blackout is especially notable: it falls on the same date as the nationwide outage of August 19, 2022, when floods crippled the country’s main fiber routes. Three years later, the pattern has repeated, raising new questions about the fragility of Pakistan’s digital backbone.

The Wireless and Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan condemned the recurring breakdowns, calling them a “national failure.” Its chairman, Shahzad Arshad, said the situation shows years of neglect and overdependence on a few backbone providers.

Arshad said:

Internet outages are no longer rare accidents in Pakistan, they’ve become a recurring reality. For two-thirds of the country to go dark in 2025, on the very date we saw the same collapse in 2022, should ring alarm bells at every level of government. We cannot build a digital economy on a foundation this fragile.

He stressed that a reliable internet is now as essential as electricity. “Freelancers, students, hospitals, banks — all depend on uninterrupted connectivity. Every hour offline costs Pakistan millions and damages our reputation internationally.”

WISPAP has repeatedly urged regulators and policymakers to diversify infrastructure by promoting more providers, establishing regional internet exchanges, and investing in redundancy. Arshad noted that smaller ISPs often keep pockets of communities online during national outages, but said that without stronger policies, they cannot fill the gaps left by backbone failures.