KARACHI: Internet services were disrupted across Pakistan on Tuesday after one of two undersea cable links operated by a private telecommunication company was damaged in a coastal town of Egypt, an official said.

A brief statement issued by the Pakistan Telecom­m­u­nication Auth­ority (PTA) said the problem was immediately spotted and identified, leading to efforts to fix the issue.

“Dual cuts in the terrestrial segment of SEAMEWE-5 [South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 5] between the cities of Abu Talab and Zafrana in Egypt have been reported. Alternative arrangements to

provide uninterrupted internet services to the users have been made. Work is under way to remove the fault,” it said.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Tele­communication Comp­any Ltd (PTCL) said that internet services in the cou­ntry were partially impa­cted and some customers may face “minor service degradation”, according to a Dawn.com report.

“PTCL in conjunction with the International Submarine Consortium is working to fully restore internet services on priority,” it said in a statement, adding that the company had ample bandwidth on alternate cables to cater to data needs.

Real-time network data shared by London-based internet monitoring group Netblocks on Twitter showed the disruption impacted multiple other countries, including Indonesia, Yemen, Oman and Somalia.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2022