Technology · Connectivity
Pakistan’s internet has been slow enough for long enough that Parliament has taken an interest. The chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority was summoned before a National Assembly committee to explain, and the explanations have not satisfied everyone.
PTA Chairman Hafeezur Rehman appeared before the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication after mounting criticism from lawmakers over declining speeds. He told the committee he expected the issues to be resolved within a week, and stated clearly that VPNs were not being blocked.
That second point matters, because the widespread assumption among users has been the opposite. Slow speeds combined with erratic VPN behaviour produced an obvious inference, and the PTA has now formally rejected it.
The explanations offered, and the pattern behind them
Officials have pointed to submarine cable faults, upgrade work, and international bandwidth constraints at various points over the past two years. Each of these is a genuine phenomenon. Pakistan depends on a small number of submarine cables for international connectivity, and a fault on any one of them removes a meaningful share of national capacity until repairs are completed, a process measured in weeks, because it requires a specialist vessel.
What has eroded public confidence is not any individual explanation but their succession. When each episode of degradation produces a different technical cause and a similar assurance of imminent resolution, users reasonably start discounting both.
A country can survive an unreliable internet. What it cannot easily survive is an internet that businesses cannot plan around.
Why this is an economic problem, not an inconvenience
Pakistan has spent several years building policy around digital services. Freelancing is a significant source of foreign exchange, the IT export sector is one of the few reliably growing parts of the economy, and government strategy leans heavily on digital delivery, from the government services super app to large-scale digital skills training.
All of that assumes connectivity that works. A freelancer who misses client calls, a developer who cannot push code, an exporter whose video meetings fail; these are not irritations, they are lost contracts. The damage compounds reputationally: buyers who have been let down twice route work elsewhere and do not come back when the cables are repaired.
The same infrastructure carries the payments system. Digital transaction volumes have grown sharply, with Raast QR payments crossing substantial thresholds for utility bills, and every one of those transactions depends on connectivity that holds.
The regulatory dimension
Parallel to the speed problem, the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organisation) (Amendment) Bill 2026 has been working through the legislature, approved by the National Assembly in June and pending before the Senate committee. It has attracted controversy of its own, including a revision requiring property owner consent for telecom infrastructure.
That amendment is a reasonable protection for landowners and simultaneously a constraint on network expansion. Every tower and every fibre run now requires a negotiation it did not previously require. Regulation intended to protect one interest almost always slows another, and in a country already struggling with capacity, the trade-off deserves to be discussed openly rather than discovered later.
What users can realistically do
Very little of this is within an individual’s control, which is worth stating plainly rather than offering false remedies. International bandwidth constraints do not respond to router settings.
What does help is redundancy. Households and small businesses that depend on connectivity increasingly run two connections on different providers, typically a fibre or DSL line plus a mobile data fallback, because the failure modes are often independent. For anyone whose income depends on being reachable, that redundancy has moved from a luxury to a reasonable operating cost.
Beyond that, the honest position is that this is an infrastructure and policy problem. It will be solved by cable capacity, investment and regulatory clarity, or it will not be solved at all.
Common questions
Why is the internet slow in Pakistan right now?
Officials have cited submarine cable faults, ongoing upgrade work and international bandwidth constraints. Pakistan relies on a limited number of submarine cables, so a fault on any one removes a significant share of national capacity.
Is the PTA blocking VPNs?
The PTA chairman told the National Assembly standing committee that VPNs are not being blocked.
When will it be fixed?
The PTA chairman told the committee he expected the issues to be resolved within about a week. Similar assurances have been given during previous episodes.
Why does a submarine cable fault take so long to repair?
Repairs require a specialised cable-laying vessel to locate and lift the damaged section. Scheduling and completing that work is typically measured in weeks rather than days.
How does this affect Pakistan’s economy?
IT exports and freelancing are among the few consistently growing sources of foreign exchange, and both depend entirely on reliable connectivity. Lost contracts and reputational damage outlast the outage itself.
What is the Telecom Amendment Bill 2026?
A bill reorganising aspects of telecom regulation, approved by the National Assembly in June 2026 and pending in the Senate committee. One revision requires property owner consent for telecom infrastructure.
Can I do anything about slow speeds at home?
Little, where the constraint is international bandwidth. The practical mitigation for anyone whose income depends on connectivity is a second connection with a different provider as a fallback.
