ISLAMABAD: Telenor Pakistan on Thursday faced degradation of voice and data services at some locations as a result of multiple cuts in optic fibre cable in South Region.

However, the company announced that its technical teams had repaired all the cuts restored the service by 9pm.

Telenor faced countrywide service issues at around 1pm creating confusion and panic in several areas due to unannounced signal outage, as many people linked it with the ongoing political crisis in the country.

Even Jamaat-i-Islami emir Sirajul Haq tweeted that signal down during the local government elections being held in some areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was not fair and “it should be restored immediately”.

Telenor’s spokesperson said the outage was due to technical flaw and this led to overloading and chocking of the network as services were shifted to operational system.

The company acknowledged that there were multiple technical faults at the optical fibre and outages were being faced in several cities across the country.

It also posted the position on Twitter, saying that multiple optical fibre cuts on Telenor’s service provider networks have impacted services in several locations and the company apologised for the inconvenience.

“Our teams are taking emergency measures for complete restoration of services & to keep the impact minimum. We regret the temporary inconvenience to our valued customers,” the company tweeted earlier.

The Pakistan Tele­communication Authority said there was a serious technical fault and it was monitoring the situation. Neither the Tele­communication Authority nor Telenor were willing to identify the districts or even the province(s) where the cables were damaged.

Telenor ruled out any chance of sabotage as the main optic fibre cable was disrupted at many places at the same time.

However, sources in the IT and telecom ministry said the multiple breaks occurred in Sindh between Jamshoro and Nooriabad cable, as well as in Karachi-Thatta cable.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2022