Internet service provider Stormfiber has announced that its services will be fully restored by Monday, following nearly a week of disruptions that affected users across Pakistan. The connectivity issues, which began on October 20, had caused widespread complaints of slow browsing speeds and service degradation, with many users attributing the problem to faults in the country’s submarine cable network.
Initially, there was no official statement from the ISPs involved, PTA, or the Ministry of IT regarding the cause of the outage. When questioned, IT Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja suggested that the slowdown might have been linked to a global disruption in Amazon cloud services. However, users reported that their ISPs cited damage to submarine cables as the main reason for the connectivity issues.
In a detailed statement released on Friday, Stormfiber said it expected to “fully recover the lost capacity within 72 hours (by 11:59pm on Monday, 27 October 2025).” The company added that it had already “restored over 60 per cent of the affected capacity by procuring and activating additional bandwidth on alternate cables.” Stormfiber said it was continuing to add more capacity and reroute traffic through alternate channels to improve network performance, with new bandwidth being brought online via routes through UAE, Oman, and Hong Kong. According to the company, customers would begin to see noticeable improvements even before full restoration, as incremental capacity is added in stages over the coming days.
The company also said its technical teams were working round the clock in collaboration with international partners to restore full service and network resilience. It noted that over the past few months, several regional submarine cables that carry much of Pakistan’s internet traffic — including the IMEWE and SEA-ME-WE4 systems — have experienced outages. Stormfiber explained that to mitigate the impact on its users, the Cybernet Network Operations team had proactively secured additional submarine capacity on alternate paths, including the PEACE cable system. This system originates in China and connects to Pakistan, providing an additional international route for data transmission.
However, on October 20, at approximately 5:30pm, the PEACE cable also suffered a cut in the Red Sea near Sudan, further aggravating the situation and causing evening peak-time congestion and intermittent slowdowns. According to PTA, the submarine cables landing in Pakistan are operated by PTCL, Cybernet, and TransWorld Associates. PTCL manages three undersea networks — AAE-1 (Africa, Asia, and Europe), SMW4 (South-East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe), and IMEWE (India-Middle East-Western Europe). Stormfiber said it was utilizing all available routes to minimize the effects of the cable faults and ensure that users experience stable connectivity as soon as possible.
Internet disruptions linked to submarine cable faults have become a recurring challenge for Pakistani users, highlighting the need for diversified routing and increased domestic redundancy in the country’s internet infrastructure.
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