Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication, Shaza Fatima Khawaja, has confirmed that internet disruptions across Pakistan are caused by a submarine cable cut near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
In a statement on Monday, the minister said she was in contact with officials of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) regarding the situation.
“It is correct that slow internet is affecting businesses,” the minister acknowledged, adding that assessments were underway to determine the extent of the damage.
Her statement comes days after PTCL had warned that the cuts to submarine internet cables in Saudi waters might impact internet services in the country during peak hours.
The company had said that the disruption affected partial bandwidth capacity on two major undersea cable systems, SMW4 and IMEWE, which connect Pakistan to global networks.
It further added that international partners were working on a priority basis to restore the damaged links, while local teams had arranged for alternative bandwidth to mitigate the impact.
However, the IT minister said that international repair agencies had not yet provided a time frame for the restoration of services.
“The nature of the cable damage is being reviewed,” she added.
It should be noted that the outage was also felt across the Middle East, with users in the UAE and Gulf countries reporting slow connections following a cut in the Red Sea.
Experts say that ship anchors are responsible for almost 70% of such incidents. The Red Sea is considered a critical global telecommunications corridor where repairs are technically complex and often prolonged.
In March 2024, three cables were damaged in the same region, causing widespread disruption to internet and cloud services.
