Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) sources have confirmed that the underground fiber optic internet communications cable has been damaged and is being repaired since Friday. The submarine cable was damaged at a distance of 175km away from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia which resulted in drop of connectivity in Pakistan as well as India. Approximately 10 to 20 percent internet and other communication services have been effected from this incident and the services have been temporarily shifted to SMEW3 and SMEW4.
PTCL customers have been in an uproar since Friday and have logged complains regarding slow browsing and problems in downloading. Some Pakistani websites and blogs claimed that they were facing trouble downloading torrents and criticized PTCL for blocking them. When we called on PTCL helpline to know about the problem, we heard the IVR inform us that due to repair process of the undersea cable, customers may have slow browsing and problematic downloading. The problem would be solved as soon as possible and that if you want to complain anything other than that, proceed only then.
We also verified if the downloading problem was related to torrents specifically and if PTCL was doing a crackdown against the pirated downloading method like they did on YouTube and were informed that it was not the case. The torrent problem was a part of the bigger picture.
Today its again down & representative says nothing why this happened, whereas other ISPs are providing their services without any problem
what the problem with connectivity now??
The government should ask ptcl to stop charging broad band charges from customers till the restoration of internet facility.
@Muhammad Jawaid, even though you are right in demanding exemption of charges in exchange for faulty services but this moral behavior cannot be expected from a Pakistani company as we never adopted practices such as this in our businesses
Indeed the torrents are back online. Fierce resolve by PTCL resolved the matter much quicker than expected. The torrent problem was due to the expansion of the bandwidth, so that normal usage can be adjusted in place of downloading.
That is a bad news for me
I am a movie viewer buff but torrents became down these days on my wi-tribe but now have told by my friend that it is getting restored.It is a good news for all torrent lovers.:yeah)
It was quite a sad news for torrent users about occurring of submarine cable fault,but after three days, it has taking its place again and working now.I am happy to know about it.