KARACHI, July 22: The Pakistan Telecommunication Company has made no arrangement to protect the key under-water fibre-optic cable which developed a fault late last month when it was severed by a ship’s anchor. A senior official of the PTCL agreed that the SEAMEWE-3 cable – the world’s longest fibre-optic link owned by a 92-party consortium -– lies unprotected in the territorial waters of the country.

“An unsuspecting fisherman dropped anchor and cut the fibre-optic cable last time. A repeat of this type of accident cannot be ruled out” he said, adding he had no idea why efforts were not being made to make the area out of bounds to fishing vessels.

The cable problem disrupted telecom, aviation and banking and other businesses across the country, especially the fledgling call-centre industry.

PTCL, which operates the cable, installed some satellite back-up links and restored some Internet access but many users complained the service was still very slow. Two submarine-cable-laying and maintenance ships were involved in the repair work which took around 11 long days.

A spokesman for the PTCL said that the phone utility had asked the government to prevent fishermen from dropping anchor in the area.

“This move must be initiated by the government. The PTCL does not own the Arabian Sea and we cannot declare the area in which the fibre-optic cable lies out of bounds to fishing vessels. I understand that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority will take some action in this regard,” he said, refusing to explain what action was being considered by the telecoms regulator.

The secretary of the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, V.A. Abidi, said the fact that no effort was being made by the PTCL to protect the key fibre-optic cable — whose prolonged defect caused the country millions of dollars — bore ample testimony to the inefficiency and irresponsible attitude of those who ran the phone utility.

“For 11 days, the fibre-optic cable remained down. It developed a fault simply because it was hit by an anchor. It is beyond me why no effort is being made to protect the vulnerable cable,” he wondered.

Mr Abidi said at the least the PTCL could take two measures. “First, they should educate the fishing community about the importance of the cable and why they should not drop cable in the area where the cable lies. Second, they should install buoys to mark the area where the cable lies. These are two inexpensive measures and all the PTCL officials have to do is to come out of their air-conditioned offices and educate the fishing community,” he said.