ISLAMABAD: A large number of internet users, mainly in Karachi, fa­­ced outages on Thursday evening as the submarine cable system SEAMEWE-5, extending from Singapore to France and Italy, was damaged.

A statement issued by Transworld Home, the company operating the cable, said that a nationwide disruption was caused due to a ‘fibre cut in terrestrial network’.

A senior official of IT and telecommunication ministry told Dawn that the disruption had occurred in the cable network of Transworld Associates, one of the three submarine cable operators in Pakistan.

The cable system, which was damaged at the junction of Suez Canal and Mediterranean Sea near Egypt, caused disruptions in other countries as well.

A senior Transworld Associates official said the cable was largely undersea, but a patch of around 480km was on land in Egypt to avoid disturbance due to the movement of ships in the Suez Canal.

The official added that repair works on land were easier as compared to tracing and fixing the damage under the sea.

The South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 5 (SEAMEWE-5) submarine cable system, commissioned in 2016, is nearly 20,000 kilometres long, extending from Marseille in France to Singapore.

Currently, there are seven submarine internet cable systems connecting to Pakistan, of which four are operated by Pakistan Telecom­mu­nication Company Limited, two by Transworld Associates and a new cable system that recently came online, owned by a Chinese company.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2022

Opinion

Editorial

Maulana’s message
Updated 11 Mar, 2025

Maulana’s message

The problem now is that most jihadi fighters, ideologues refuse to end their "struggle" on advice of state or mainstream clerics.
President’s speech
11 Mar, 2025

President’s speech

PRESIDENT Asif Zardari, addressing Monday’s joint session of parliament to mark the start of a new parliamentary...
Indian takeover
11 Mar, 2025

Indian takeover

BY the time the Champions Trophy final ended, the only indicators that the tournament had been hosted by Pakistan...
Mosquito season
10 Mar, 2025

Mosquito season

AS temperatures rise, the threat of dengue looms large over Pakistan. Its warning signs have already arrived. Dengue...
Reckless rhetoric
10 Mar, 2025

Reckless rhetoric

ONCE again, the Indian leadership gave in to their worst impulses, with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar...
Water scarcity
Updated 10 Mar, 2025

Water scarcity

The need to meet climate challenge is even greater when Pakistan is prone to multiple disastrous events at the same time.