Pakistan’s Web Management System WMS) or “Firewall” is not responsible for slow internet or internet disruptions, according to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) – rather, the shoddy state of telecommunications infrastructure is to blame. According to PTA documents, more than 21,000 sites related to nationwide telecommunication infrastructure suffers from or are susceptible to  power outages and load-shedding, owing to a lack of generators (required for backup in the case of power failure). Further to this, more than 739 physical sites have fallen victim to theft, with generators and other equipment stolen, 147 sites being hit by terrorists over a five year period.

On the other hand, according to the PTA documentation, the WMS, or more accurately earlier incarnations of it, have not caused internet speed to be impacted – a claim that would raise eyebrows of many over the past six months or so.

Hashtag(s): #InternetShutdowns, #5G, #Keepiton, #InternetAccess.

Frequent internet shutdowns and disruptions are causing severe economic losses for
Pakistan, and the government must now roll out 5G to tackle this crisis, according to
Pakistan’s IT industry. As the independent VPN review website TopVPN observed in their
report on the economic impacts of global internet shutdowns, Pakistan was the most
severely impacted, suffering a US$1.62 billion hit to the economy, and with 82.9 million
users being affected. Coupled with statements made by the head of P@SHA last month
claiming that Pakistan risks facing yearly financial losses up to US$150 million, the IT
industry has called for the rollout of 5G to be sped up, through a March 2025 spectrum
auction. The head of P@SHA has also pushed for new undersea cables to be installed, and
for cell towers to be enhance for fibre-optic capabilities.

Hashtag(s): #Internet, #ElonMusk, #InternetAccess.
Starlink, the satellite internet network owned by Elon Musk, could be coming to Pakistan,
according to an X/Twitter conversation between Musk and a Pakistani X user, and which
has been picked up by Pakistani news outlets. When asked by the X user over the weekend
to bring Starlink to Pakistan, Musk replied, via his own account, that “We are awaiting for
approval from the government”. This appears to be borne out by IT Minister Shaza Fatima,
who responded, when asked by journalists at Starlink, that “It is registered, and the
licensing is in process.”
Given frequent internet shutdowns, as well as ongoing issues with internet infrastructure
in Pakistan, calls for Starlink to come to Pakistan, as a means of bypassing these issues, are
on the surface understandable. Starlink, however, has proven to be controversial, with
access in Ukraine being temporarily halted for political reasons, as well as in Gaza.

Hashtag: #InternetAccess, #DigitalPakistan, #InternetInfrastructure.

International submarine cables are responsible for slow internet speeds over the weekend,
and this is being rectified, according to IT Minister Shaza Fatima. According to IT Minister
Fatima and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, the submarine cable known as
Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (or AAE-1) suffered a fault around Qatar, that caused a severe
degradation in the quality and speed of internet access in Pakistan. According the Minister
and the PTA, “the issue of degradation of Internet services due to fault in AAE1 submarine
cable on January 2, 2025 ad hoc bandwidth has been arranged and added in the system”.
According to additional reports, a new underwater cable is being laid that will provide
more stable internet connections, via system called the “2Africa Submarine Cable”, backed
by a consortium that includes Meta, China Mobile and the Saudi Telecom Company. The
Minister and PTA did not address earlier internet disruptions, however, which have been
attributed by rights groups to the development of the internet “firewall” or Web
Management System.

Hashtag(s): #InternetShutdowns, #KeepItOn,
Internet shutdowns over the course of 2024 has cost the Pakistani economy US$1.62
billion, according to a report by TopVPN, an independent VPN review website. According
to TopVPN, government-mandated internet shutdowns in 2024 resulted in a global
economic cost of US$7.69 billion, of which Pakistan was the most severely impacted,
followed by Myanmar (US$ 1.58 billion) and Sudan (US$1.12 billion). This is a drastic
increase from 2023, where the total cost to Pakistan was US$237.6 million, according to
TopVPN’s report for 2023. In additional to the economic cost, the TopVPN estimates that
82.9 million users in Pakistan were negatively affected over the course of 2024.
According to the report, 82.9 million internet users in Pakistan were impacted by the
shutdowns, with “Peaceful Protest” and “Free & Fair Elections”, two other benchmarks,
were also impacted, as can be confirmed by the ongoing ban on X (Formerly Twitter). The
report also highlighted that social media platforms, X in particular, were a key target of
internet shutdowns in 2024, worldwide.
TopVPN calculated the economic costs of internet shutdowns by “using the Netblocks Cost
of Shutdown Tool, which is based on the Brookings Institution method, with CIPESA’s
specialized model used for sub-Saharan Africa. Regional shutdown costs are derived
from the region’s economic output as a proportion of national GDP.”