Unlicensed Operators Cut StormFiber Cables at Multiple Sites, Thousands Impacted on Eid Day

StormFiber’s underground fibre infrastructure was sabotaged at three separate locations in Gulzar-e-Hijri, Karachi, on Wednesday morning, knocking thousands of subscribers offline during the Eid holidays.

While we don’t have official confirmations, but if sources are to be believed then the local and unlicensed Internet providers are to be blamed to this blatant act of cutting the StormFiber’s infrastructure.

Restoration efforts are completed with StormFiber stating that all affected users are back online now.

The damage has been traced to unlicensed cable operators active in the locality. Past incidents of this nature suggest these attacks are not random they tend to recur around major occasions such as Eid, when household reliance on connectivity peaks and disruption inflicts maximum impact.

Unable to compete with licensed fibre on speed, reliability, and consistency, such informal operators are increasingly resorting to sabotage in areas where subscribers are switching to StormFiber in growing numbers.

Photographs from the three affected sites included here illustrate the scale and deliberate nature of the cuts.

Despite the disruption, StormFiber’s field teams were mobilized within hours and worked through the day to splice and restore the damaged segments underscoring the operator’s commitment to service continuity, particularly at a time when families rely most on staying connected.

The broader issue, however, extends beyond a single operator. Pakistan’s digital ambitions depend on the integrity of the physical infrastructure that underpins connectivity.

Attacks on licensed telecom networks must be treated with urgency. Regulators, the government, law enforcement agencies, industry bodies, and the wider telecom ecosystem need to act in coordination to protect long-term infrastructure investments and ensure that those resorting to sabotage to distort market competition are held accountable.

A Digital Pakistan cannot be built on networks that informal operators are free to cut at will disrupting access and damaging critical infrastructure.

The network is resorted and impacted customers are now online.